tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52630951239378815322014-12-24T20:56:59.137-08:00CreationismThe Night Owlnoreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-49625022167550955372012-04-07T15:00:00.001-07:002012-06-09T18:42:18.631-07:00Transcendental Argument for God's Existence<p><em>AARON: TAG stands for the transcendental argument for God's existence. Van Til and Bahnsen argue that science, logic, and morality all presuppose the existence of the Christian (read Calvinist) God. Amazingly enough, their attacks on science and logic seem to stem from the radical skepticism of David Hume. Hume argues that there is no rational basis for induction...in other words just because the sun comes up today doesn't mean that it necessarily will come up tomorrow. Still, science presupposes that induction works thus they presuppose the existence of God. In a nutshell, proponents of TAG argue that everybody, by their actions, demonstrate that they know that God exists. They presuppose that Christianity is true and the Bible is infallible. Thus, they maintain that all knowledge is contrary to scripture must be wrong. So, they hold that their worldview is internally consistant. At the same time, they argue that inconsistancies can be found in every other worldview.</em> </p><br /><p>ED: Naturalists point out the opposite, that the regularity of the universe appears to be natural and hence does not require God's existence.</p><br /><p>And of course, the history of modern day science, though it "began" among mono-theists, is now a discipline all on it's own, practiced by people of all faiths and non-faiths. So there is no proof that science requires monotheism. (The Greeks were reasoning their way toward new inventions and conducted some of the earliest scientific experiments long before Christian mono-theism arose, and of course, Christian mono-theism also was originally so supernaturally based that it also served to thwart many scientific investigations in favor of demonic and angelic explanations of the cosmos' behavior.)</p><br /><p>And lastly I've just read about the discovery of OMEGA numbers. Unpredictible numbers, and their discovery has thrown a further wrench in the belief that mathematics and/or logic are somehow "proven" disciplines. It's always been a matter of discovering things, like biologists discover new species. Or like discovering that the sun rises again and again in very similar fashion.</p><br /><p>All in all, the TAG argument is neither an argument nor "proof" of anything, but an interpretive outlook. I believe, having read Rushdooney's THE ONE AND THE MANY, that Rushdooney thought even the Trinity could be "proved" if you began with the "right presuppositions." It's the presuppositions and interpretations that differ. There is no "proof" in presuppositional apologetics.</p><br /><p>Or as Timothy Leary once put it, "I don't believe that the truth will set you free, because we all have such a tremendous ability to rationalize the truth."</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/latest_2003/tag_argument.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-13404135556095278032012-04-07T14:49:00.001-07:002012-06-09T18:40:39.893-07:00Science is no longer a search for *truth*?<p><em>Naturalism has captured science, such that science is no longer a search for *truth*, i.e. what *actually* happened, but the best explanation consistent with naturalistic philosophy, whether it is true or not.</em></p><br /><p>ED: Correction, philosophy and theology are a search for *truth* Science is a search for knowledge. </p><br /><p>Invoking miracles to explain how we get from "this to that," adds nothing to human knowledge. Science is an attempt to build on the knowledge we have, to hypothesize and discover connections between things we know. Miracles have no connection except in the supernatural mind of God. They have no explanatory value, they cannot be compared one to another, since each miracle is unique and uniquely inexplicable.</p><br /><p>I have explained in previous emails that the genetic "leap" from the common ancestor to both human and chimpanzee is quite small, especially concerning the essential functioning genes. And the "leap" lay within known mutation frequencies of genetic change over time.</p><br /><p>If anyone wishes to believe that God kept dipping his finger in the brew over the five-million-year-time span lying between man and chimp and their common ancestor, that is their prerogative to believe that's what God did. Neither is it up to science to prove a universal negative regarding any and all miracles.</p><br /><p>But speaking of knowledge, scientific knowledge, what we DO know is that the evidence points to man and chimpanzee sharing a common ancestor approximately five million years ago. The genetic evidence is quite plain on that matter as he himself has pointed out concerning the shared lack of a gene to produce vitamin C and shared retroviral genes in homologous DNA locations in both human beings and chimpanzees. I would add to that the evidence of chromosomal fusion that can be seen in the human chromosome no.2 which certainly has left behind marks inside the chromosome itself of being a fusion of two chromosomes (that are still separate in the chimpanzee lineage).(<a href="http://www.evolutionpages.com/Writing.htm" target="_blank">ARTICLE ON THE WEB</a> on that topic, and also on several other pertinent molecular evolutionary biology topics.</p><br /><p>We ALSO presently know of over a hundred species of primitive ape, all of whose arms were shorter than modern day apes, and who had some other features such as the lack of a simian shelf in their jaws, that means that modern day apes DIVERGED from the primitive ape form (adding longer arms and a simian shelf in their jaws), while the extinct hominid species that lead in the general direction of man retained some of the basic characteristics of the primitive apes.</p><br /><p>We ALSO know that all those species of primitive apes became extinct, as did all the species of hominids leading up to man, and even some varieties of human being became extinct as well, like the Neanderthal, (except of course for the one remaining human lineage which lives today).</p><br /><p>In summation it seems to me that those who propound the "Design" must face up to the fact of retroviral and other junk in the DNA, thus the Designer does not "take out the garbage." The Designer's "plan" also includes that of ALL his "Designed" primitive ape species, including ALL of his hominid species and even a sub-species of man (Neanderthal), ALL except the one lineage leading to modern man, becoming extinct.</p><br /><p>The facts certainly seem to imply that we are dealing with either a "Divine Tinkerer," or neo-Darwinism. And in the end, just how far apart is the "Divine Tinkerer" hypothesis from that of neo-Darwinism, and so what exactly is the "fuss" about, i.e., concerning the difference between "progressive creationism" and a "neo-Darwinistic evolutionary viewpoint?" There are fine-tuner Christians who see no "fuss" concerning the difference. In fact, fine-tuners agree that it would be more proof of "Design" not less, if life were found elsewhere in the cosmos, on other planets, in other words, if evolution was a cosmic phenomena, rather than say, limited to "progressive creation" on one tiny planet in the entire cosmos.</p><br /><p>The view of fine-tuners is simply this, that a God who can design a cosmos that makes people out of billion year old carbon is more of a marvel maker than a God who has to keep pulling rabbits out of his hat and adjusting things. (Reminds me of the way folks, including Newton, used to invoke God as a cosmic repair man who they believed stepped in to set right any minor perturbations in the courses of planets and stars. But today nobody invokes God to do such a thing.)</p><br /><hr color="black" align="left" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><p>[QUOTATIONS FROM RECENT ARTICLES THAT BEAR DIRECTLY ON EVERYTHING I WROTE ABOVE]</p><br /><p>Chimps Belong on Human Branch of Family Tree, Study Says<br />John Pickrell in England<br />for National Geographic News<br />May 20, 2003</p><br /><p>Derek E. Wildman, Goodman, and other co-authors at Wayne State argue in their new study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that given the evidence, it's somewhat surprising that humans and chimps are still classified into different genera. Other mammalian genera often contain groups of species that diverged much earlier than chimps and humans did, said Goodman. "To be consistent, we need to revise our definition of the human branch of the tree of life," he said.</p><br /><p><strong>Historically Flawed</strong><br />Goodman and colleagues used computer methods to analyze the amount of similarity between 97 important human and chimp genes and as many of the same gene sequences as are currently available for less-studied gorillas, orangutans, and Old World monkeys. The results suggested that within important sequence stretches of these functionally significant genes, humans and chimps share 99.4 percent identity. (Some previous DNA work remains controversial. It concentrated on genetic sequences that are not parts of genes and are less functionally important, said Goodman.)</p><br /><p>Using the DNA data, the researchers argue that humans and chimp lineages evolutionarily diverged from one another between five and six million years ago.</p><br /><hr color="black" align="left" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><p><a href="http://www.evolutionpages.com/Mouse%20genome%20home.htm" target="_blank">What does the mouse genome draft tell us about evolution?</a><br />by Alec MacAndrew</p><br /><p>An astonishing 99% of mouse genes turn out to have analogues in humans. Not only that, but great tracts of code are syntenic - that means the genes appear in the same order in the two genomes.</p><br /><p>The findings of the draft mouse genome are astonishingly powerful evidence for common ancestry, mutation and selection: in short for the Theory of Evolution. There is a list with links below for the key points within the paper which can only be explained by evolution. It is just not possible to explain what we see in the two genomes if they have only been in existence for 6500 years unless we invoke deliberate deceit on God's part.</p><br /><p>90.2% of the human genome and 93.3% of the mouse genome lie in conserved syntenic segments</p><br /><p>The syntenic blocks have been re-arranged by chromosomal events over time The distribution of size of the syntenic blocks is consistent with a random mechanism for chromosomal rearrangements</p><br /><p>It is possible to recognise the difference between repeat sequences that were added to the genomes before divergence of mouse and man lineages and those added after divergence</p><br /><p>The measured mutation rate since divergence of mouse and man is ample to explain the divergence of the species</p><br /><p>The rate of insertions of repeat sequences as a function of time can be measured for both man and mouse</p><br /><p>Repeat sequences are tolerated in the same regions in mouse and man and in both cases insertion of repeat sequences is not tolerated in functionally critical regions such as the homeobox clusters</p><br /><p>Two sorts of pseudogene exist in eukaryotes - processed and unprocessed - we know how they arise and it has taken millions of years for the pseudogenes we see in mouse and man to arise</p><br /><p>Pseudogenes can be identified by the ratio of synonymous to non-synonymous mutations occurring over millions of years and by the fact they do not generally have a homologous gene in the same syntenic position in the other genome</p><br /><p>99% of mouse genes have homologues in humans and 96% are in the same syntenic location</p><br /><p>The fact that mouse and human are relatively closely related allows us to study orthologous genes - genes which have arisen and diverged from a common ancestor</p><br /><p>12,845 orthologous gene pairs were found between man and mouse (homologous genes in the same syntenic location)</p><br /><p>The Ka/Ks ratio (ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous mutations is = 1 in neutral regions and the median value is 0.115 in genes) - this can only be explained by common descent</p><br /><p>Within genes, regions containing known domains have a lower Ka/Ks ratio than those that do not</p><br /><p>The percentage of cases in mouse where the mouse gene matches the most common human allele at sites which have Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms is very close to the percentage of amino acid identity across the two genomes: very strong evidence for common ancestry</p><br /><p>Expansion into gene families has occurred in cases where the family has important functionality specific to a lineage</p><br /><p>The Ka/Ks ratio in lineage specific gene families is higher than average suggesting that they are undergoing more rapid evolution than the rest of the functional genome as evolution theory would predict</p><br /><p>The percentage nucleotide alignment across the whole of the mouse and human genomes (about 40%) is compatible with what is known about the rate of DNA deletion in the two lineages since divergence</p><br /><p>The rate of substitutions in ancestral repeat sequences in non-coding DNA is the same as the rate of substitution at four fold degenerate sites in functional regions - very strong evidence for mutation and selection over a long time</p><br /><p>The detail of which parts of the genome are more highly conserved between the two species aligns well with functionality</p><br /><p>Introns are conserved no more than background non-functional DNA and so do not appear to have functionality in their code</p><br /><p>Gene structures - number of exons and coding length in exons - is strongly conserved across mouse and human genomes - very strong evidence for common ancestry</p><br /><p>The difference in mutation rate (obtained by comparing mouse and human genomes) between X-chromosomes and autosomes can be explained by what we know about differences in mutation rate in male and female meiosis and relies on common ancestry and mutation over millions of years</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/latest_2003/search_for_truth.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-91887518260213991452012-04-07T14:31:00.001-07:002012-06-09T18:38:13.046-07:00Meeting God and Asking God Scientific Questions<p>Two folks agreed with me that philosophers and theologians seek "truth," while scientists seek knowledge. (See below)</p><br /><em><p>#1 Ed Babinski recently pointed out that science is not a search for truth, it is a search for knowledge. Philosophy and theology deal with the search for "truth." I've always considered scientific knowledge the "truth," but as it is always subject to change due to further discovery, I think Ed's distinction is better.</p><br /><p>#2 I see how much attention you pay to me! I've been saying that for years! *sniff*<br />Although I phrase it differently. I'd say that science is about the search for useful ideas, where "useful" is defined as meaning that the ideas allow us to say things about the world that are objectively verifiable (at least in principle) in a particularly scientific way. There are many cases where ideas are kept in science even after they are known to be false in some sense, just because they remain useful. Consider the current state of physics where relativity and QM contradict each other, but nonetheless accurately predict phenomena at different scales. Both are wrong in that both predict things that don't happen at other scales, but both are astoundingly correct at the scales they were "designed" for. One day, someone will come up with one or more better theories that don't suffer from those problems and we'll move on to them, but until then, they remain useful.</em></p><br /><p>ED: Miracles are not "scientific" explanations, they are by definition "miraculous" explanations. The phrase, "It's a miracle" explains all and nothing at the same time, adding not a whit to the sum of human explanatory knowledge. Think of it this way, a scientist transported before the throne of God would want to ask God SCIENTIFIC questions and would not be satisfied with the answer, "It was a miracle." For instance, a scientist would like to know HOW God performed each miracle, like how He </p><br /><p>1) turned dirt into living matter, </p><br /><p>2) made the earth bring forth fruit trees, </p><br /><p>3) separated the light from the darkness, and the waters above from the waters below </p><br /><p>4) By what interconnected steps, either mentally or physical did such ideas come into God's head and/or arrive at completion? </p><br /><p>5) What is the exact nature of the mental or physical connections that exist in the seeming "tree of life" that God created? And why those connections rather than others? (By "others" I mean, for instance, horses with bird's wings, which apparently sparked into the heads of human beings who created the Pegasus myth.)</p><br /><p>6) How can you tell the difference between a "deceptively natural mutation" and a "truely supernatural mutation?" </p><br /><p>7) Why take tens of millions of years to create a succession of species and at the same time let so many cousins of that species simply grow extinct in the process? </p><br /><p>8) Why create the less specialized animals before the more specialized in the cases for instance of whales and birds? </p><br /><p>9) Why could not an omnipotent being create things wholly specialized, fully realized, all at once, instead of playing round with say, unicellular forms for two billion years before creating the first simply multi-cellular forms? If the environment was not conducive to multi-cellular life and introducing it too soon would allow many species of it to die out, why not miraculously change the environment sooner? *smile*</p><br /><p>10) Or conversely, since the geological record is host to a vast number of extinctions, maybe that means that God DID create many species "too soon?" Many species died before man or sin ever appeared on earth. Why were they created at all, only to suffer and die eons before man was born? </p><br /><p>12) And finally, there are the questions of the meaning of what God wrote, i.e., historical-critical questions, again driven by a "scientific" kind of curiosity. Though not "scientific" questions per say, they are obvious literary questions that no one who has studied ancient creation tales can ignore. Like </p><br /><p>13) Why did God couch his language in six-day creationist terms, even citing the six "days of creation" as the basis of the "rest on the seventh" of both God and man on the sabbath? (Sounds like literal days to make such a connection.) </p><br /><p>14) Why did God couch his language in terms of animals being created directly from the earth if that was not so? </p><br /><p>15) and all heavenly bodies "made and set" above the earth only AFTER the earth had been created, instead of before the earth was created, if that order was not so? </p><br /><p>16) and all the "days" of creation revolving around things created just for the earth or on the earth, thus making the whole creation account sound quite "geocentric" (earth-centered), i.e., to being the account with "mornings/evenings" created on "day" one, allegedly earth-mornings and earth-evenings and the first day on earth, which is geocentric. Then to have the earth's land and sky created on day two, to have the earth's plants and fruit trees created on day three, the sun, moon (literal Hebrew "great lamps") created just to light the earth on day four, then earth animals, and finally man, created from the earth. Thus, the whole creation account, every single "day" and "night" is firmly centered on things created for the earth or on it, the rest of the cosmos is practically ignored except for how it shines on the earth. The acts of creation are furthermore all measured in six "earth days" i.e., by earth's "evenings and mornings," etc. How much more geocentric can you get? </p><br /><p>Ancient church fathers like Ambrose argued based on Genesis and Job that the light of dawn was separate from the later light shed by the rising sun which merely adds to the lumination of each morning's light. Ambrose argued that way because mornings and evenings were created before the sun in Genesis, and because Job mentions "storehouses of light and darkness," therefore "morning light" was separate from the light shed by the two "great lamps" -- the sun and moon that were simply "made and set" above the earth after the earth itself and it's mornings and evening had ALREADY BEEN ESTABLISHED. </p><br /><p>I have plenty of doubts. I have so many that I am neither an atheist nor a Christian. However, of one thing I feel fairly certain, if a being exists that is all-compassionate and all-wise, I cannot believe that such a being would cast me into a lake of fire for the commonsense questions I have concerning the Bible and history and science. In fact, an all-compassionate, all-wise being would know of the shortness of man's lifespan, what little time any of us has for study, and would likewise know of the pains and difficulties and desires and frustrations, physically and psychologically, and communicatively, that every member of our species faces each day, along with the uncertainties, the multitude of religions and denominations, and surely would not cap that all off with eternal hellfire. *smile* </p><br /><p>A Jewish saying I read, goes, "Time and God are the best teachers."<br />If time and God are the best teachers, then I cannot but hope for all. *smile*</p><br /><p>Ed</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/latest_2003/questions_to_god.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-66784592714038465222012-04-07T14:17:00.001-07:002012-06-09T18:35:00.608-07:00Genesis, Evolution and Bernard Ramm<p>"In progressive creationism there may be much horizontal radiation. The amount is to be determined by the geological record and biological experimentation. But there is no vertical radiation. Vertical radiation is only by fiat creation. A root-species may give rise to several species by horizontal radiation, through the process of the unraveling of gene potentialities or recombination. Horizontal radiation could account for much which now passes as evidence for the theory of evolution. The gaps in the geological record are gaps because vertical progress takes place only by creation." (Ramm B.L., "The Christian View of Science and Scripture," [1955] Paternoster: Exeter, Devon UK, 1967, reprint, p.191)</p><br /><p>ED: Genetically speaking the distance between man and chimp is no greater than that between sibling species of fruit flies. So by what measure do progressive creationists distinguish between "horizontal evolution" and "vertical creation" in the case of human evolution? If all 300+ species of fruit fly found only on the Hawaiian islands are "horizontal evolution," then why isn't the descent of chimp and human from a common ancestor also "vertical evolution?" The latest genetic data agree that human beings could be regarded as a third species of chimp, i.e., pan, bonobo and human.</p><br /><p>Here's a letter from a YEC who also critiques Ramm's "horizontal/vertical" explanation. (I would like to know what Lubenow was speaking about below concerning Ramm's "further movement" away from the historicity of Genesis.)</p><br /><p>On Bernard Ramm and Spradley...<br />by Marvin L. Lubenow<br />Apologetics/Theology<br />Christian Heritage College<br />2100 Greenfield Drive<br />El Cajon, CA 92019</p><br /><p>From: <a href="http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1992/PSCF9-92Lubenow.html" target="_blank">Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith</a> 44 (September 1992): 218</p><br /><p>The article by Joseph Spradley on Bernard Ramm and the ASA (March 1992) was fascinating.</p><br /><p>There is an aspect of Ramm's progressive creationism that as far as I know has never been addressed. While not denying theistic evolution as a viable option, Ramm claimed that progressive creationism was a strictly creationist system because it did not involve vertical radiation (evolution) but only horizontal radiation (The Christian View of Science and Scripture, 1954, p. 215 &amp; 272). The vertical events he called creation events. While Ramm was quite stingy with details of his system, he seemed to suggest that creation took place at the Phyla and/or Family level (p. 215).</p><br /><p>There is an inverse relationship between the number of creation events one has in his system and the amount of vertical evolution one must invoke to explain the variety and complexity of our present world. The fewer creation events one has, the more he must depend upon evolution to make up the difference. Hence, Ramm's system is unworkable. There is no way that one can explain the complexity of our present world by having creation at the Family level (or higher) and depend only on horizontal radiation. Ramm's progressive creationism is thus an evolutionary system, partially, even though he sincerely believed it was not.</p><br /><p>The fact that Ramm has moved even further from an historical view of Genesis suggests that at gut level he realized that his progressive creationism emperor had no clothes. Spradley admits that "...t perhaps conceded too much to science." However, the basic suppositions that allow such concessions are the gift that keeps on giving. Ramm's newer view concedes even more of Genesis.</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/latest_2003/horizontal.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-37042246499377569282012-04-06T20:03:00.001-07:002012-06-10T11:01:05.274-07:00Stellar Evolution, Grand Canyon, Loch Ness Monster and Humans and Dinosaurs in Bible?<p>Latest info on stellar evolution:<br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3479615.stm" target="_blank">An amateur astronomer witnessed</a> the birth of a new star. The new object had appeared alongside the well-known gas cloud known as Messier 78. The star came out of its enclosing cocoon over the past few weeks. An urgent appeal has gone out to astronomers to monitor the object which is now known as McNeil's nebula. Here is the story at BBC NEWS Last Updated, Thursday, 12 February, 2004</p><br /><p>Speaking of evolution, I like to start with the stars. Stellar evolution is about as close to undeniable evidence as you can get. I recently wrote a young creationist named Anna, who asked me some basic creationist questions that she thought were unanswerable and told her to read ASTRONOMY and SKY AND TELESCOPE magazine. Star formation is being observed and measured right now, via satellite telescopes that are able to record radiation at different levels of the electro-magnetic spectrum, like x-ray radiation, and other types (visible light can be seen by the human eye but visible light is only a tiny portion of the entire range of radiation lying along the electro-magnetic spectrum). Such satellite measurements include measuring the speed of gasses rushing together toward a central point of gravitational collapse. Fu Orionus, a new star, was observed brightening the sky for the first time decades ago. There is a lot of data on star formation at present, and more is being gathered all the time. Stars form in cloudy nebulas (regions of high gas concentration). And the ages of the stars in those nebulas is youthful, the ages of such nebulas also fall along a particular spectrum of ages as expected by the current theories of star formation. Nothing unexpected there. In fact even creationist astronomers have remarked how good the evidence for stellar evolution is. See these quotations from CREATIONISTS:</p><br /><p><strong>STELLAR EVOLUTION</strong><br /><ul><li>"...the theory of stellar structure appears to be founded on a good physical basis and...stellar evolution is intimately related to stellar structure...<br /><li>"If creationists wish to scrap stellar evolution completely, then it is incumbent on us to rework stellar structure and/or physics in a convincing fashion...<br /><li>"The standard observational tool used in studying stellar structure and evolution is the Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram... It consists of a plot of stellar luminosity increasing upward and temperature increasing to the left...Most stars are found on a roughly diagonal band called the main sequence (MS)...<br /><li>"This agreement is quite impressive and the physical assumptions that go into it are so well founded it is doubtful that many creationists would have much to argue with in main sequence (MS) stellar structure. However, what is generally called post MS evolution is not far removed from the brief outline of stellar structure given above.<br /><li>"The most massive stars may pass through successive steps of fusing helium nuclei with increasingly more massive nuclei up to iron...Note that these transitions have not actually been observed. However, they are based on physics principles and will naturally occur...<br /><li>"The upshot is that the most massive stars have MS lifetimes of only a few hundred thousand years (of course, still much longer than young-age creationists would allow), while the lowest mass stars have MS lifetimes approaching 100 billion years...<br /><li>"And evolutionary assumption concludes that the stars in a star cluster should form from a single cloud so that the members represent...a homogenous group. Different clusters should have different ages, and though they technically have different compositions, even large differences in composition do not seriously affect the overall appearance of an H-R diagram...<br /><li>"The agreement of the theory [of stellar evolution] is quite impressive...<br /><li>"[The expected evolutionary] trend between globular and open clusters is observed...<br /><li>"Evidence [exists] that the formation of planetary nebulae and the evolution of white dwarfs are related...These two ages have a very good correlation...<br /><li>"A similar relationship holds for neutron stars and supernova remnants. As with planetary nebulae, the expansion velocity and observed size of the remnant can be used to estimate the time since the explosion...Where a pulsar can be identified in a supernova remnant, the ages of the remnant and the pulsar are well correlated.<br /><li>"Very brief discussions of stellar structure and evolution have been presented. Though it would seem that creationists would not have much with which to quarrel in the former, most would largely dismiss the latter. However, the two are intimately related, and one cannot be rejected without seriously calling into question the other. We are appealing to readers to give much attention to the study of stellar evolution..."</ul><br />-- DANNY R. FAULKNER &amp; DON B. DE YOUNG [young-universe creationists], "Toward a Creationist Astronomy," Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 28, Dec. 1991, pp. 87-91</p><br /><p>"Perhaps the most important remaining question [in astronomy] for [young- universe] creationists is the origin of the turnoff points in the H-R diagrams of different clusters. The stars are real physical objects and presumably follow physical laws; we would rather not take the easy way out by saying simply that `God made them that way.' But if creationists take the position of rejecting stellar evolution, they should provide a feasible alternative."<br />-- PAUL STEIDL [young-universe creationist], The Earth, the Stars, and the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), p. 153 -- as quoted by Howard J. Van Till in The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens Are Telling Us about the Creation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 239</p><br /><p>ALSO google the Ph.D. astronomers "Hugh Ross" (at Reasons to Believe) and "Robert Newman" (as The Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute) on the internet because they are creationist Christians who both agree that the evidence for stellar evolution is overwhelming, and they have even debated their young-earth creationist brethren on that point. </p><br /><hr><br /><p>The creationist I mentioned above, named Anna, was persistant, however, and continued asking me more questions, that I replied to...</p><br /><p>ANNA: <em>Ok, so every about what 20 years we have a star expolde, right?</em></p><br /><p>ED: Hello again Anna. I don' t know what the average number of stellar explosions is in the cosmos, and I sincerely doubt that astronomers know either. It would be impossible to keep track of every exploding star in the visible cosmos. First of all, do you know what a "galaxy" is? It is a conglomeration of about a billion stars. We live in a spiral-shaped galaxy called the Milky Way and our planet is found circling only one star that is found on one of the spiral arms, closer to the outward tip of the arm than toward the center of the galaxy as a whole. In the beginning of the last century, telescopes could only see the stars in our galaxy. In fact, with the visible eye, that is all you see when you look up into the sky, just the stars of the Milky Way Galaxy, and of those, you can only distinguish about 8000 stars at most with the unaided eye on a clear night. But there are about a billion stars in our galaxy alone, most of which we can't see with the unaided eye, and beyond those stars in our galaxy there lay even fainter white dots in the sky that only telescopes can see. Each of those faint white dots, upon closer examination, turns out to be other galaxies. But at the beginning of the last century, astronomers thought those faint white dots were just cloudy nebulas of hot gas. Better telescopes were invented and those blurry nebulas were found to be a multitude of spiral shaped galaxies like our own. Then even better telescopes were invented, telescopes that circle the earth, like the Hubble scope, and we found out that there were about 50 billion galaxies out there, and today, with the latest satellite telescopes we know there are over 100 billion galaxies out there. In other words, if you raise your fist to the nighttime sky, the area of the sky that your fist covers, contains about a 100 million galaxies in the depths of space and time. But you can't see them. So I doubt that astronomers are able to keep track of all the stars in a 100 billion galaxies or how often a star in each of those galaxies explodes. Or course if you were just looking at our own galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, I'm sure they have some rough idea of how often such explosions occur just in our galaxy, and even where they occur most often. Recently, astronomers defined within our own galaxy, a "Galactic Habitable Zone" that has fewer cases of stars going nova than in other regions.</p><br /><hr><br /><p>ANNA: <em>So why is there evidence that only about three hundred of them exploded?</em></p><br /><p>ED: I do not know where you got that number from, as I said, the cosmos is far too vast for astronomers to keep track of every exploding star. But there is one exploding star in particular that you should learn more about, since it provided some strong evidence in favor of <a href="http://www.evolutionpages.com/SN1987a.htm" target="_blank">an old-cosmos</a>.</p><br /><hr><br /><p>ANNA: <em>If the earth was indeed millions of years old woulnd there be more evidence of novas / super novas? </em></p><br /><p>ED: There is evidence of galaxies colliding in the present as well as in the past, there is evidence of stars still being born, and of stars exploding, and there are also some huge rings of matter that keep expanding from stellar explosions that took place in the distant past. Judging by the present measured speeds of the expansion of such huge rings of matter, their initial explosions had to have taken place long before the time when young-earth creationists say the world was created.</p><br /><hr><br /><p>ANNA: <em>what are your thoughts on the Grand Canyon? </em></p><br /><p>ED: Are you asking whether I believe the Grand Canyon was formed by a single world-wide Flood? My answer would be no. And why is there only one Grand Canyon on the entire face of the earth? And why does it lay so far inland? Surely waters rushing off the continent during the months when the Flood subsided would have created canyons galore all along the ridges of the continents. </p><br /><hr><br /><p>ANNA: <em>How do you belive it was created? Not by the river that runs through the bottom, i hope. It was made during the flood and all those layes of coal were to. </em></p><br /><p>ED: Steve Austin's <a href="http://home.entouch.net/dmd/grandcanyon.htm" target="_blank">Grand Canyon Erosion Argument</a>: A Mathematical Sleight of Hand</p><br /><p>A <a href="http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/bibliolatry_revisited_elders.htm" target="_blank">geologist reviews</a> a creationist book on the Grand Canyon</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/8434_issue_20_volume_7_number_1__6_12_2003.asp#A%20Creationist%20Walk%20Through%20the%20Grand%20Canyon" target="_blank">Creation Walk Through the Grand Canyon</a></p><br /><p>The <a href="http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/grand.htm" target="_blank">Grand Canyon's geology</a>, starting with the Cambrian, and going through several websites to a final conclusion, written by a geologist</p><br /><p>The <a href="http://home.entouch.net/dmd/geo.htm" target="_blank">Entire Geological Column</a> in North Dakota</p><br /><p>A geologist (who is also a former young-earth creationist) reviews Answers In Genesis' <a href="http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/henke_refutes_sarfati.htm" target="_blank">attempt to defend Flood Geology</a></p><br /><p>Assorted <a href="http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/new_no_flood_evidence.htm" target="_blank">articles on FLOOD GEOLOGY</a>, including a few on the Grand Canyon and one by me at the near end of the list.</p><br /><p>Why <a href="http://home.entouch.net/dmd/geology.htm" target="_blank">Geology Shows Sedimentation</a> to Be too Slow for a Global Flood, written by a former young-earther who is now a professional geologist</p><br /><hr><br /><p>ANNA: <em>What are your theories on the Loch Ness Monster? Do you belive that its a living dinosoar? </em></p><br /><p>ED: The <a href="http://www.editoreric.com/skeptics/skepticism.html" target="_blank">photograph that kicked off</a> the craze for the supposed monster in Loch Ness, Scotland was taken in 1934. In 1994, one of the people involved in taking the original picture admitted it was a trick. The "monster" was created by attaching an artificial head to a toy submarine which was just over a foot long. Other evidence collected by scientists and skeptics over the years have exposed other photos as faked or misread. The claims that a huge monster exists in Loch Ness have also been debunked by research showing that such a creature could not survive on the food available in the loch; even less could a substantial colony of such creatures - necessary for the survival of individual creatures over the centuries - be supported. Furthermore, the lack of any credible physical evidence of a creature or a colony of creatures after six decades of intensive searching by numerous expeditions would seem to make Nessie's existence unlikely.</p><br /><hr><br /><p>ANNA: <em>There has been proof of dinosoars living with humans and the bible talks about it to. </em></p><br /><p>ED: No it doesn't. The Bible in Job only speaks about Behemouth and Leviathan, two beasts of mythical proportions, perhaps modelled on some large animals, but mythically exaggerrated. People in Job's day didn't know what beasts existed in the world, all sorts of strange mythical beasts were invented, especially to live in the lands beyond the edges of the then known world. One of Job's beasts even breathes fire. Why it didn't singe its own mouth, lips or nostrils is a good question. Why it didn't risk inhaling any of the fire into its lungs is another question since it's mouth and nostrils were filled with fire and smoke, and how it lit chemicals to produce flames is another question. No animal on earth produces flames (the bombadier beetle produces only hot liquid).</p><br /><p>If you want to learn more about ancient mythical beasts in the ancient Near East and how the Bible came to also employ such stories in the book of Job, read, Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition by Bernard F. Batto (Paperback - November 1992)</p><br /><p><strong>RELATED LINKS</strong><br /><a href="http://home.entouch.net/dmd/geology.htm" target="_blank">Geology</a></p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/tektonics/stellar.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-57745814500970396792012-04-06T17:53:00.001-07:002012-06-10T10:56:29.269-07:00The Paluxy Mantracks Story<p>The creationist book that jumpstarted the young-earth movement as Henry Morris', THE GENESIS FLOOD, published in the early 1960s. In that book he featured photographs of individual slabs of limestone that contained what looked like a giant human footprint in the middle of each slab. The slabs were allegedly dug up near the Paluxy river in Texas. The Paluxy river region soon became a Mecca (or holy pilgrimage site) for young-earth creationists (though some young-earthers like those at Loma Linda University, had cross-sectioned some of the original limestone slabs and wrote a report early on that said they were just carvings, not genuine human prints). By the mid-1980s the existence of "man tracks" in Paluxy was being questioned even by the two largest and most influential young-earth institutions, The Institute for Creation Research or ICR (that Henry Morris himself had founded), and Answers in Genesis or AiG. Recently, I digitized the color slides of Glen Kuban, who played a major role in convincing ICR that the Paluxy "mantracks" were not human. Glen's slides will soon be on the web.</p><br /><p><strong>JOHN MORRIS OF ICR SPEAKING IN 1986 ON THE PALUXY DATA:</strong><br />"<a href="http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-151.htm" target="_blank">It would now be improper for creationists</a> to continue to use the Paluxy data as evidence against evolution, in the light of these questions, there is still much that is not known about the tracks and continued research is in order." (Jan. 1986)</p><br /><p><strong>AiG'S RECENT COMMENTS ON THE PALUXY "MAN PRINTS":</strong><br />"<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp" target="_blank">Some prominent creationist</a> promoters of these tracks have long since withdrawn their support. Some of the allegedly human tracks may be artefacts of erosion of dinosaur tracks obscuring the claw marks. There is a need for properly documented research on the tracks before we would use them to argue the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs."</p><br /><p><strong>SNELLING OF AiG TRIED TO KEEP THE PALUXY DATA ALIVE BACK IN 1986:</strong><br />"In order to discredit creationists, not long ago the evolutionists argued that many so-called human-like footprints were nothing but erosion marks, carvings, and "midnight chisel marks". Ironically, these SAME footprints will probably now be claimed to be the footprints of an unknown dinosaur because of some perplexing stains! All of which is a sober reminder -- none of us have ever seen<br />dinosaurs make footprints." (Creation (Ex Nihilo), Andrew Snelling, March, 1986, Vol. 8, No.2, p. 37)</p><br /><p><strong>E.T.B.'S COMMENT ON SNELLING'S 1986 REMARKS:</strong><br />The "mantrack" discoveries were not all made at once. First, the well-defined carvings were found (being sold during the depression), one print per limestone slab, right in the middle of the slab. Thousands of loose limestone slabs of different sizes line the shores of the Paluxy. Anyone can one pick up and take it home to "work on." Carl Baugh or Henry Morris or Burdick quoted an old-timer who said they "saw the print right in the rock," but did they mean they saw such such prints in situ? A later interviewer went back to the same old-timer and asked them where they saw the rock, and the old-timer answered, "It was on the back of so-and-so's truck." There are also confessions by carvers and their kin, how they used a loose limestone slab, a hammer and chisel, and acid on rags, to smooth out the carved human prints they created. The carvings were what the earliest tales of "man tracks" at Paluxy were based on, they also featured the most well-defined "prints" (though featuring amateurish anatomical errors). Several such limestone slabs featuring alleged human prints were purchased by Loma Linda (creationist 7th Day Adventist) University and cross-sectioned and declared to be nothing but carvings by YECs at Loma Linda who wrote a report on their findings and doubts. </p><br /><p>But the carvings initiated more YEC interest, and soon some YEC's visited Paluxy and made the film, "Footprints in Stone," but for all of their searching and filming they never found any in situ man prints that resembled the carvings, they only found trails of indistinct oblong impressions that they claimed were made by humans and/or giant humans. (They also found isolated wearings in the rocks that were not part of any trail but that they claimed could be viewed as a "print" of a "human" sort.) </p><br /><p>Glen Kuban pointed out in ORIGINS RESEARCH (a creationist publication begun with ICR seed money), that there were nearby trackways in Paluxy that showed indistinct oblong track impressions, and in those trackways the oblong impressions were mixed with tridactyl impressions, and vice versa, as you followed the trackways along their full length. So, evolutionists have no trouble identifying the indistinct oblong trackways as dinosaurian in origin. </p><br /><p>There are also many erosion features, shallow oblong holes, along both banks of the Paluxy river -- these miniature potholes were carved out by water streaming in one direction down the river. They are of an extremely wide variety of sizes and shapes. </p><br /><p>In some cases like the famous "Von Daniken print" (a single "human-foot shaped" feature in Paluxy that was featured in Von Daniken's film, "Chariots of the Gods," and in creationist publications, including Weston-Smith's book, Man's Origin and Man's Destiny), both Von Daniken and later creationists left the gravel on one side of the feature, and even wetted it in, to make it look like the print's right side was as well defined as its left side, but in fact the "print's" right side does not exist at all, but is flush with the rock, and it only exists when you leave gravel there or "wet the print" to create a "right side of the foot" in your mind's imagination. (You can see how this works when you view photos taken from different angles with the print clean of gravel and not wetted.) Even John Morris noted his own doubts concerning the Von Daniken print. Morris admitted when it was first photographed it had only four "toes" (the first two being equal-sized in an anatomically abnormal fashion), but years later a fifth "toe" began appearing in photos, and even Morris suggests that the "fifth toe" was not originally in evidence, but probably resulted from later tampering. </p><br /><p>The story of the Paluxy "manprints" debacle appeared in Creation/Evolution Journal in which Ronnie Hasting's published his daily journal of interactions with ICR researchers who came to look at what Kuban had found, and their reactions, at first, dismissal, then taking their own more careful second and third looks, and finally admitting they couldn't really see the "human-ness" of the trackways any more than Kuban could:</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/3868_issue_15_volume_5_number_1__4_23_2003.asp#Tracking%20Those%20Incredible%20Creationists" target="_blank">Tracking Those Incredible Creationists</a><br />by R.J. Hastings</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/5063_issue_17_volume_6_number_1__4_23_2003.asp#Tracking%20Those%20Incredible%20Creationists" target="_blank">Tracking Those Incredible Creationists- The Trail Continues</a><br />by Ronnie J. Hastings</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/9711_issue_21_volume_7_number_2__6_30_2003.asp#Tracking%20Those%20Incredible%20Creationists-The%20Trail%20Goes%20On" target="_blank">Tracking Those Incredible Creationists-The Trail Goes On</a><br />by Ronnie J. Hastings</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol22/291_tracking_those_incredible_crea_12_30_1899.asp" target="_blank">Tracking Those Incredible Creationists</a><br />by William Thwaites</p><br /><p>Kuban's photos and detailed site diagrams were also published in black and white in ORIGINS RESEARCH, a creationist journal that originated with seed money from ICR. Copies of past issues of ORIGINS RESEARCH are still available at the ARN website, for a price: </p><br /><p>ORIGINS RESEARCH Volume 9, Number 1 - Spring/Summer 1986<br />The Taylor Site "Man Tracks" Glen J Kuban<br />A Review of ICR Impact Article 151 Glen J Kuban<br />A Follow up on the Paluxy Mystery John Morris<br /><a href="http://www.arn.org/orpages/orindex.htm" target="_blank">A Footprints in Stone</a>: The Current Situation Films for Christ Assoc.</p><br /><hr><br /><p>SNELLING'S 1986 REMARKS ON THE "STRANGE RED-BROWN STAINS ON THE ROCKS"<br />"The unknown significance of hithertofore unexposed strange red-brown stains on the rocks in and around the footprints renders the need for caution until further research explains this occurence." (Creation (Ex Nihilo), Andrew Snelling, March, 1986, Vol. 8, No.2, p. 37)</p><br /><p>E.T.B.'S COMMENT: The reddish "stain" revealing the tridactyl nature of the alleged "man tracks" can be seen even in the early YEC film, "Footprints in Stone," long before Kuban ever arrived on the scene. Also, the "stains" are not superficial: Drill core samples taken at the edges of the stained surface showed that the reddish sediments curved with the impression of the dinosaur's foot beneath the surface, as Kuban showed via his drill core samples that he photographed.</p><br /><hr><br /><p><strong>AiG'S LATEST CLAIM: "HUMAN AND DINO PRINTS" FOUND TOGETHER IN RUSSIA</strong><br />E.T.B'S COMMENT.: <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i2/bullet.asp" target="_blank">AiG admits</a> that it is best to remain skeptical of "magic bullet" stories that can allegedly overthrow an old-earth or evolution in one shot, especially if such stories are not thoroughly researched.</p><br /><p>AiG's latest report of "human and dino prints" found together in Russia has not been researched, no photos, just a newspaper article. So by their own definition they ought to be skeptical about this new evidence, no? </p><br /><p><a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4419.asp" target="_blank">Snelling at AiG</a> has admitted that perhaps there will never be found any indisputably genuine pre-flood human fossils or pre-flood human artifacts or evidence of pre-flood dwellings (such as a series of small walls found in Cretaceous or earlier strata). Instead, Snelling has suggested that perhaps no evidence of pre-Flood human beings may ever be found: "When God pronounced judgment on the world, He said, 'I will destroy [blot out] man whom I have created from the face of the earth' (Gen. 6:7). Perhaps the lack of pre-flood human fossils is part of the fulfillment of this judgment?"</p><br /><hr><br /><p>ANSWERS IN GENESIS' RECENT COMMENTS ON CARL BAUGH'S RESEARCH (Carl Baugh, Kent Hovind, and Ron Wyatt (deceased) are among the last remaining supporters of the Paluxy "manprints"):<br />"[We suggest creationists do not use...] many of Carl Baugh's creation 'evidences.' Sorry to say, AiG thinks that he's well meaning but that he unfortunately uses a lot of material that is not sound scientifically. So we advise against relying on any 'evidence' he provides, unless supported by creationist organisations with reputations for Biblical and scientific rigour. Unfortunately, there are talented creationist speakers with reasonably orthodox understandings of Genesis (e.g. Kent Hovind) who continue to promote some of the Wyatt and Baugh 'evidences' despite being approached on the matter (Ed. note: see our Maintaining Creationist Integrity, our response to Hovind's reply to this article)."<br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/tektonics/paluxy.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-59749485875661539152012-04-05T19:51:00.001-07:002012-06-09T23:59:03.072-07:00Creationism and Human Evolution<p><strong>CREATIONISM AND HUMAN EVOLUTION</strong><br />(From the Talk Origins Archive)<br />The usual creationist response to hominid fossils is to claim that there are no intermediates; each one is either a human or an ape. It doesn't matter that some of the "humans" have a brain size well below the normal human range, heavy brow ridges, no chin, and teeth larger than modern ones set in a projecting jaw, or that some of the "apes" were bipedal, with very humanlike teeth, and brains larger than those of similar sized apes. There are some skulls which cannot be reliably assigned to either genus.<br />(Willis 1989)<br />This is exactly what we would expect if evolution had occurred. If, on the other hand, creationism was true and there was a large gap between humans and apes, it should be easy to separate hominid fossils into humans and apes. This is not the case. As will be shown, creationists themselves cannot agree which fossils are humans and which are apes.</p><br /><p>It would not matter even if creationists could decide where to put the dividing line between humans and apes. No matter where it is placed, the humans just above the line and the apes just below it will be more similar to one another than they will be to other humans or other apes.<br />Although there are many variants of creationism, the following sections deal only with the arguments of young-earth creationists, who hold to a very rigid literal interpretation of the Bible. They typically believe that the earth was created less than 20,000 years ago, in the space of six 24-hour days. Old-earth creationists usually accept the age of the earth given by geologists (4.6 billion years), but differ considerably in their acceptance of the theory of evolution.</p><br /><hr><br /><p><strong>YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISTS ADMIT NUMEROUS HOMINID FOSSILS EXIST</strong><br />"I was surprised to find that instead of enough fossils barely to fit into a coffin, as one evolutionist once stated [in 1982], there were over 4,000 hominid fossils as of 1976. Over 200 specimens have been classified as Neandertal and about one hundred as Homo erectus. More of these fossils have been found since 1976."<br />-- Michael J. Oard [creationist], in his review of the book, Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 30, March 1994, p. 222 </p><br /><p>"The current figures [circa 1994] are even more impressive: over 220 Homo erectus fossil individuals discovered to date, possibly as many as 80 archaic Homo sapiens fossil individuals discovered to date, and well over 300 Neandertal fossil individuals discovered to date."<br />-- Marvin L. Lubenow [creationist], author of Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, in a letter to the editor of the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 31, Sept. 1994, p. 70 </p><br /><hr><br /><p><strong>THE EVIDENCE FROM APE FOSSILS PRIMITVE APES ARE NOT THE SAME AS MODERN APES IN SOME WAYS PRIMITIVE APE ANATOMY MORE CLOSELY RESEMBLES MODERN HUMAN ANATOMY THAN IT RESEMBLES MODERN APE ANATOMY</strong><br />Over 100 species of primitive apes are known to have existed during the Miocene period in Europe and Africa. Those primitive ape species appeared before the first human-like apes (Australopithecines). And the primitive apes all differ from modern great ape species in that the primitive apes were all relatively nearer to modern day human skeletal anatomy than today's great apes are. For instance, the primitive apes all had small hands, and had legs and arms the same length; while MODERN great apes all have large hands with long fingers, and their arms are longer than their legs. The primitive apes also had no simian shelf in their jaws, again like modern humans; while the MODERN great apes all have a simian shelf in their jaws, unlike modern humans. [See David R. Begun, "Planet of the Apes," Scientific American, August 2003] So the general skeletal anatomy of the earliest known apes were nearer to human than is the skeletal anatomy of modern apes that have diverged and gone in a separate anatomical direction.</p><br /><hr><br /><p><strong>NON-FOSSIL EVIDENCE</strong><br />Man and chimp are nearer each other genetically than either of them are to the other apes. One early estimate of the genetic distance between man and chimp was done in the 1970's using the technique of pairing up the two halves of DNA strings from different species to see what percentage of the DNA stands would join together and what percentage did not. Humans and great apes were found to be no more dissimilar than sibling species of fruit flies:<br />"We have obtained estimates of genetic differentiation between humans and the great apes no greater than, say, those observed between morphologically indistinguishable (sibling) species of Drosophila flies (fruit flies)."<br />-- Elizabeth J. Bruce &amp; Francisco J. Ayala (Dept. of Genetics, Univ. of Calif.), "Humans and Apes Are Genetically Very Similar," Nature, Nov. 16, 1978, Vol 276, p. 265.</p><br /><p>"New genetic evidence demonstrates that lineages of chimps (currently Pan troglodytes) and humans (Homo sapiens) diverged so recently that chimps should be [reclassified] as Homo troglodytes. The move would make chimps full members of our genus Homo, along with Neandertals, and all other human-like fossil species. 'We humans appear as only slightly remodeled chimpanzee-like apes,' says the study... Within important sequence stretches of these functionally significant genes, humans and chimps share 99.4 percent identity. (Some previous DNA work remains controversial. It concentrated on genetic sequences that are not parts of genes and are less functionally important, said Goodman.)..."<br />-- "Chimps Belong on Human Branch of Family Tree, Study Says" John Pickrell in England for National Geographic News May 20, 2003<br />news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0520_030520_chimpanzees.htm</p><br /><p>Lastly, if you were to compare the genetic distance not between man and chimp, but between man and their common ancestor, the genetic distance must be halved once again. So the genetic distance is not [unbridgeable] by any means. Even one of the founders of I.D., Michael Denton, has recognized the [bridgeable] nature of the genetic distance between species and has [abandoned] his former "anti-common-descent" views as a result:<br />"One of the most surprising discoveries which has arisen from DNA sequencing has been the remarkable finding that the genomes of all organisms are clustered very close together in a tiny region of DNA sequence space forming a tree of related sequences that can all be interconverted via a series of tiny incremental natural steps. So the sharp discontinuities, referred to above, between different organs and<br />adaptations and different types of organisms, which have been the bedrock of antievolutionary arguments for the past century, have now greatly diminished at the DNA level. Organisms which seem very different at a morphological level can be very close together at the DNA level."<br />-- Michael Denton, <a href="http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho29.htm" target="_blank">Nature's Destiny</a> (chapter 12, p. 276)</p><br /><p>Some creationists try to counter the evidence of incredibly small differences between the human and chimp genomes with arguments such as this one:<br />"Humans have 3 billion 'letters' (base pairs) of DNA information in each cell, so a two percent difference [between human and chimp genomes] is actually 60 million 'spelling errors!' Of course, this is not 'error' but twenty 500-page books worth of new information that needs to be explained by mutation and selection."<br />-- Jonathan Sarfati [creationist], Refuting Evolution 2, p. 186</p><br /><p>Response:<br />"Sarfati is trying to classify every difference in the genomes of humans and chimps as 'new information' that would have to be introduced either into the human or the chimp genome since the last common ancestor of humans and chimps. What he neglects is the fact that the vast majority of those differences are single nucleotide differences in genes (or, more often, in stretches of noncoding DNA) that merely change one amino acid in a protein (with no change in function), or make no change to the protein at all , or occur in DNA sequences that make no protein. Others are stretches of DNA of which one species has more than one copy -- to the other species' single copy of that same stretch of DNA (such duplications are common mutations in the genome) -- or that have simply moved from place to place among the noncoding DNA, or similar differences. So the facts are not as Sarfati presents them, but rather the vast majority of differences between human and chimp DNA have been identified, and THEY ARE THE MOST COMMON SORTS OF CHANGES THAT MUTATIONS HAVE BEEN OBSERVED TO PRODUCE. Maybe there are some variant genes of a type that mutations have not been known to produce, but Sarfati does not make any such distinction, nor provide evidence of such a discovery. What we do see in the vast majority of cases are simple duplications, deletions, translocations, and point alterations of stretches in the other genome, ALL OF WHICH HAVE BEEN OBSERVED TO OCCUR NATURALLY."<br />-- Steven J. </p><br /><hr><br /><p><strong>CHROMOSOMAL EVIDENCE</strong><br />Normally, each chromosome is shaped like a long hot dog wearing an extra-tight slimming girdling in the middle, and that tapered region in the center of each chromosome is where the "centromere" is located. Human Chromosome #2 contains REMNANTS of a SECOND CENTROMERE that would be expected if our chromosome was once two separate chromosomes each with their own centromere. In the great apes today they have two chromosomes, #2 &amp; #3 whose banding patterns match up with the extra-long single Human Chromosome #2. In other words, Human Chromosome #2 appears to have resulted from the fusion of two ancestral chromosomes still found in all the living species of apes, and that explains why Human Chromosome #2 contains the REMNANT of a SECOND CENTROMERE. Moreover, the chromosomal number and length and distinctive banding patterns of all the other chromosomes found in both humans and chimpanzees line up extremely well, as can be seen at the websites below that feature photos and diagrams.<br />See the article "<a href="http://www.evolutionpages.com/chromosome_2.htm" target="_blank">Human Chromosome 2 is a fusion of two ancestral chromosomes</a>" by Alec MacAndrew</p><br /><p>as well as the article,<br />"<a href="http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html" target="_blank">Comparison of the Human and Great Ape Chromosomes</a> as Evidence for Common Ancestry"</p><br /><p>For further Human and Chimpanzee chromosome comparisons see <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/chromcom.html" target="_blank">Beth Kramer's site</a>.</p><br /><p>Also click to sub-page<br /><a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/chr.bk1.html" target="_blank">which provides a detailed matching</a> of human and chimp chromosomes 1-4. Note how the chromosomal banding patterns on the second chromosome in humans lines up with those in two shorter chimp chromosomes, while all the other chromosomal numbers and banding patterns of chimp and human match up quite closely. For <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/chr.jpeg.html" target="_blank">matchings on other chromosomes</a></p><br /><p>Note: humans have 22 chromosomes (called autosomes), <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/chro.all.html" target="_blank">plus the X and Y</a>.</p><br /><p>For a beautiful image matching all the chromosomes of four hominids -- human, chimpanzee, gorilla, and orangutan. Finally see the <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/chr.clad.html" target="_blank">Hominoid Phylogeny</a> (ancestral tree) based on these chromosome comparisons</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/tektonics/creationism.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-17765373967500665692012-04-01T11:14:00.006-07:002012-06-10T11:13:50.062-07:00Edward T. Babinski Speeches<p><strong>Speech #1</strong><br /><img alt="Ed Babinski February 1990 on Flat Earth Creationism" hspace="0" src="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/ed_babinski_1990_01.jpg" align="center" border="0"><br />Filmed February 17, 1990 Ed Babinski speaks to an audience on Flat Earth Creationism.<br />This first speech, on the Biblical shape of the earth, was delivered before a group in Columbia, South Carolina, the "South Carolina Academy of Religion," that meets once a year, an informal group of religion professors, educators, and ministers.</p><br /><p><embed src="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/mediaplayer.swf" width="320" height="260" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="height=260&width=320&file=http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/babinski_01_1990.flv&image=http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/ed_babinski_1990_03.jpg" /></p><br /><p><strong>Speech #2</strong><br />The second speech was on the Biblical age of the earth and evolution, delivered before the Greenville, Secular Humanists of Greenville, S.C. This speech addresses the basics of the Creation-Evolution controversy, including a variety of discussion on Human-Chimp chromosomes and Pseudogenes, Geology and fossils.</p><br /><p><embed src="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/mediaplayer.swf" width="320" height="260" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="height=260&width=320&file=http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/babinski_02_1996.flv&image=http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/ed_babinski_02.jpg" /></p><br /><p>Download <a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/babinski-hovind.zip">Challenge to Kent Hovind</a> by Edward T. Babinski.<br />Download stored in zip format.<br />Zip file includes "http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/babinski-hovind.wmv"<br />Requires Windows Media Player<br />Total File Size: 4.82 Megabytes<br />Duration: 2 Minutes, 32 Seconds<br />Challenging Kent Hovind to explain fossils in the geological record and similarities between human and chimp chromosomes, including Pseudogenes.</p><br /><p><div align="center"><a href="http://www.hellboundalleee.com/" target="_blank"> <img alt="Hellbound Alleee" hspace="0" src="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/hellbound.jpg" border="0"></a></div></p><br /><p>Download <a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/hellbound.zip">Interview on Hellbound Allee</a><br />hellbound.zip contains "http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/hellbound.mp3"<br />(<strong>Edited</strong> from the original hour long broadcast)<br />Size: 4.86 megabyte<br />Duration: 42 minutes 28 seconds<br />Original broadcast date: March 12, 2005</p><br /><br /><a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/babinski_01_1990.flv">babinski_01_1990.flv</a> 52,998 k<br /><a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/speech-01.wmv">speech-01.wmv</a><br />File Size: 6.95 Meg<br />Duration: 28 Minutes 36 Seconds<br /><br /><a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/babinski_02_1996.flv">babinski_02_1996.flv</a> 59,763 k<br /><a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/videos/speech-02.wmv">speech-02.wmv</a><br />File Size: 7.87 Meg<br />Duration: 32 Minutes 28 Seconds<br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/videos/</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-9120278643041461612012-03-27T13:54:00.002-07:002012-06-09T16:16:55.337-07:00Varieties of Scientific Creationism<blockquote>This article is reprinted from the Spring 86 ish of THE JOURNAL OF FAITH AND THOUGHT. Other articles in that ish include A.J. Mattill's Jr.'s "A Zoo-Full of Monsters" --examining inerrantist explanations of Scripture, and Richard Tierney's "Giants in the Earth?" -- another look at the Paluxy footprint evidence. For a copy of that particular issue, contact FAITH AND THOUGHT, First Baptist Church of Montclair, Church Street and Trinity Place, Montclair, New Jersey 07042.</blockquote><br /><p><u>Concentric Creationists</u><br />In Dante's <u>Inferno</u> the Poet told of his journey deep into the bowels of the earth, past a number of circular terraces, each encompassing the next, and each deeper than the one before, viz., the "circles" of hell. The torments suffered by the sinners in each circle increased with the depth of their habitations. ("How deep is my suffering" took on a surprisingly literal meaning in Dante's eyes.) "Scientific" creationism is like Dante's <u>Inferno</u> in that it has many levels capable of accomodating a variety of "heretics" vis-a-vis scientific orthodoxy, who willingly choose to "suffer" for their "unbelief". Some, of course, suffer more than others. . . .</p><br /><p>Beginning at the bottommost circle lie the <u>flat</u> <u>earthers</u> (The International Flat Earth Research Society of America) who view the Bible as a textbook that supports only "flat earth science". The president of the Flat Earth Research Society, Charles K. Johnson, denounces modern scientists as "witchdoctors, sorcerers, tellers of tales. . .and Pathological Liars", and refers to ordinary fundamentalist Christians as "atheists"! On the other hand, his society is so sensitive to rebuke that to receive their literature you must sign a statement that affirms your aim is "not to harm, degrade, or defame this Society".</p><br /><p>The circle above the flat earthers contains the <u>immovable earthers</u> (The Tychonian Society), who view the Bible as a textbook of "geocentric astronomy". They, at least, are on dialogue terms with their heliocentric creationist cousins (see below). In fact the latest creationist convention, held in Cleveland, Ohio, 1985, was hosted by two geocentrists! In their opinion, visualizing the sun as lying at the center of the planets is an echo of ancient pagan sun worship and denies the clear words of Scripture that depict the earth's primacy in creation, its immobility, and the sun's movement.</p><br /><p>The circle above the immovable earthers contains the <u>young</u> <u>earthers</u> (Institute for Creation Research, etc.), who accept the sun's central status, but deny that the earth could be much more than ten thousand years old. These creationists, like their immovable earth cousins, enjoy denouncing the paganistic, atheistic, humanistic errors of modern man, and his lack of trust in that revealed scientific textbook, the Bible.</p><br /><p>The circle above the young earthers contains the <u>old</u> <u>earth</u> <u>creationists</u>. They accept a sun-centered system of vast astronomical age and thus do not deny modern science's view of man's place in space and time. However. they are quick to point out that evolutionary connections between major forms of life are theoretical, not proven, and therefore modern science must be adjusted to the teaching of that scientific textbook, the Bible, at this point. This group appears to be the most congenial; at least they are able to dialogue with modern scientists without using as many heated adjectives as the previous groups.</p><br /><p>To sum up our gallery of anti-evolutionists: flat earthers believe in a flat earth, only a few thousands of years old, and at the center of the universe. Geocentrical or immovable marchers simply drop flatness from this cosmology. Young earthers drop flatness and geocentricity. Old earthers drop even the recent date of creation, and only maintain that over however long a period, the various species of life were discretely created, not evolved from one another. The circles of creationism end here because to rise any farther out of the pit of modern scientific "perdition" requires that you view the Genesis creation account "mythically", or "allegorically", and thus, no longer as a scientific textbook.</p><br /><p><u>A Book that Speaks "Clearly" about Creation</u><br />All creationist groups appeal to the Bible as their chief source of scientific data. Flat earthers quote from it. So do immovable earthers (geocentrists), young earthers, and old earthers. Further more, they all quote from it with equal authority and equal dignity, being equally unconvinced by competing interpretations. Yet how can all of these creationist interpretations come from the same book?</p><br /><p>To answer this question, let us journey back to when ancient man had no telescopes, skylabs, or even Newtonian laws of gravitation to lead him. He had his eyes. And he looked out at the horizon, and it appeared flat. He looked up toward heaven and it appeared stretched out above the earth, meeting the earth at the far horizons. We know from a Babylonian map of the world, inscribed on an ancient clay tablet, that the Babylonians pictured the earth as a flat disc surrounded by water ("the bitter river"). Above this disc, according to the Babylonian creation epic <u>Enuma Elish</u> lay a solid heavenly dome. Ancient Egyptian iconography agrees in depicting a round, flat earth surmounted by Nut (the firmament) whose fingers and toes rested, respectively, on the far eastern and western horizons. The ancient Greek poet Homer agreed with this flat earth view, but imagined the giant Atlas bearing the sky on his shoulders.</p><br /><p>It is the opinion of modern biblical scholars that flat earth passages in the Bible reflect the equally ancient conceptions outlined above. Later, when science rejected flatness in favor of sphericity, theologians began to explain away and "reinterpret" Bible verses implying flatness. However, verses referring to the earth's "firm foundation", and the sun's movement were interpreted literally since they supported the earth-centered astronomy of the Middle Ages. Subsequently, when geocentricity fell prey to heliocentricity, the earth-centered verses, too, were explained away. This left only young earth creationist verses, which, of course, old earth creationists explain away. How this explaining away process works in practice is the subject of the following sections.</p><br /><p><u>How to Explain Away Flat Earthism</u><br />Example 1: Daniel 4:10, 11 tells us that there was a tree in the midst (or center) of the earth, and its height was great. . . it reached to the sky, and was visible to the end of the whole earth". Obviously, such visibility implies a flat earth. However, this verse may be explained away as depicting a "mere dream" of Daniel's, viz., a "metaphorical image" of the extent of Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom. (However, the fact that flat earth imagery surprised no one, least of all, Daniel, also implies that it was taken for granted.)</p><br /><p>Example 2: Isaiah 42:5 tells us that at creation God "spread out the earth"--the Hebrew verb for "spread" being used elsewhere in Scripture to depict a "flattening" or "pounding". Also, if the earth was not "spread out", but "rolled up tightly like a ball" at creation, the writer could have said so. We find the requisite Hebrew construction in Isaiah 22:18, where a man is "rolled up tightly like a ball." Round earth creationists at this point usually change the subject by concentrating their "scientific" attentions on another verse of Isaiah, "He who sits above the circle of the earth" (Isaiah 40:22), which they say implies a spherical earth. (It doesn't. Isaiah's "circle" more than likely reflects ancient notions of a <u>flat circular</u> earth, outlined above. Read Isaiah 40:22 in complete context, and study these other verses: "Who stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth" (51:13). "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars" (14:13). Thus the earth has "foundations", the heavens are stretched out", a heavenly throne may lie "above the stars", and God sits above. . .the earth". That is not spherical-earth language. Moreover, there is an obvious link between Isaiah's "circle of the earth" and the "circle" inscribed at creation on the flat surface of the waters in Job 26:10 and Probers 8:27.)</p><br /><p>Example 3: Isaiah 11:12 declares, "Gather (them) from the four corners of the earth", and Revelation 7:1 adds, "I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth". Young earth creationist Henry Morris suggests that rather than "corners", a more precise translation of the Hebrew is "four <u>quarters</u> of the earth", which "simply means the four directions". This of course, begs the question of why four (presumably flat) directions (North, South, East, and West) remained the norm for the ancient Hebrews, even to the extent of a psalmist rejoicing, "He removes our transgressions from us, as far as the east is from the west" (Psalm 103:12), which, on the globe, is not very far.</p><br /><p>Example 4: Matthew 4:8 tells us that "The devil took him (Jesus) to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory." One could see all the kingdoms of the world from a very high mountain--if the world were flat. This verse has been explained away as a "vision" of all the world's kingdoms, received on a very high mountain. However, such a "vision" would have been received equally well on the plains, so why did the devil "take Jesus" anywhere special?</p><br /><p>Example 5: Throughout Scripture the shape and construction of the earth is assumed to resemble that of a building, having a firm foundation: and a roof or canopy: "He established the earth upon its foundations, so that it will not totter, forever and ever" (Psalm 104: 5). "The world is firmly established, it will not be moved." (Psalm 93: 1). "For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he set the world on them" (I Samuel 2:8). "It is I who have firmly set its pillars" (Psalm 75:3). "Who stretched out the heavens. . .and established the world" (Jeremiah 10:12). "Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in" (Isaiah 40:22). "Stretching our heaven like a tent curtain" (Psalm 104:1,2). "In the heavens. . . . in the true tabernacle (tent), which the Lord pitched, not man" (Hebrews 8:2-3). "The One who builds his upper chambers in the heavens, and has founded his vaulted dome over the earth" (Amos 9:6). "Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament" (Psalm 150:1). Creationists other than flat earthers view these verses as "metaphorically" true. However, that begs the question of why the Bible's authors relied exclusively on flatness "metaphors". Why no roundness metaphors, and no plain declarations that the earth's shape and construction was that of a sphere?</p><br /><p>As readers may have noticed by now, it is impossible to demonstrate the superiority of a "spherical" interpretation in any of the above cases. Indeed, those who reject flat earth representations focus their biblical attention elsewhere, a favorite verse being Job 26:7 "He stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the earth <u>on</u> <u>nothing</u>"-the Hebrew means literally, "without anything", or "on nothing", and thus may be paraphrased, "without support other than God himself". Foes of the flat earth emphasize the difference between this verse and ancient Hindu cosmology wherein a flat earth was supported on a turtle's back, which swam on the back of an elephant, which stood on the back of something else, ad infinitum, proving that a flat earth requires supports ad infinitum. However, leaving Hindu mythology aside, the ancient Egyptians, who were also flat earthers, did not feel the need for supports ad infinitum. An ancient Egyptian ideogram actually portrays a single eye, connected with two hands and feet--representing <em>ka</em> a personal power--directly supporting a flat earth disc. i.e., without further assistance. Other Egyptian texts speak of divine power as the support of all things", and an Egyptian god claims, "I laid the foundations of all things by my will". Khepra, another Egyptian god, "conceived a place to stand . . . he uttered its name, the standing place at once came into being." Thus, Egyptian flat earth notions only differed from Job's verse in answering the question of <u>Who</u>. . . .hangs the earth on nothing, or without anything! Cf. Proverbs 30:4 "Who has established all the ends of the earth?" "He (Yahweh) . . . hangs the earth, without anything, on nothing!" (Job 26:7). "He established the world by his wisdom; and by his understanding he has stretched out heaven" (Jeremiah 10:12).</p><br /><p>Notice that Job 26:7 neglects to mention the earth's shape while other verses from Job declare, "(God's) measure is <u>longer</u> than the earth" (11:7, 9); "Who <u>stretched</u> <u>the</u> <u>line</u> on (the earth)?" (38:5) and "He looks to the ends of the earth, and sees everything under the heavens" (28:24), all of which imply a flat earth.<br /><p><strong>Ancient Notions of the "Circle Of The Earth"</strong></p><br /><p align="center"><img src="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/geocentrism/babylonian_world.gif" alt="Babylonian World Map" border="0" align="middle"><br />Babylonian World Map and its Reconstruction</p><br /><p align="center"><img src="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/geocentrism/babylonian_reconstruction.gif" alt="Babylonian World Map" border="0" align="middle"></p><blockquote><p align="center">EGYPTIAN WORLD-MAP (Left)<br />Above the earth disc (which is drawn is seen from on high) lies the firmament (a pair of wings, and a goddess with outstretched arms, Nut). Both earth and firmament are overshadowed by the gargantuan body of Nu, who was the prototype of the great world-ocean which later ancient nations believed to surround Creation, as indeed she does in this pictograph. The earth disc is upheld by a sign whose feet and eye identify it as a personal power, ka. This earth disc is composed of three major rings -- the two outermost rings contain symbols that represent 'desert,' 'jackals,' 'subdued foreign lands,' and 'tomb,' while the innermost ring is filled with forty-one signs (standards) of the Egyptian nomes. It therefore signifies Egypt, lying at the center of the earth -- Othmar Keel, <u>The Symbolism of the Biblical World</u><br />(The Seabury Press: 1978), pp. 37-39 &amp; 42.<br />"Poseidon, the world-circler. . . We had attained the ends of the earth and its encircling river of Ocean. . . Here an endless night is spread over its melancholy people" --Homer, <u>The Odyssey</u> "I smile when I see many persons describing the circumference of the earth, who have no sound reason to guide them. they describe the ocean flowing round the earth, which is made circular as if by a lathe, and make Asia equal to Europe." -- Herodotus (Ancient Greek Historian and Explorer), <u>Histories</u> IV, 39 (Circa 500 B.C.)</p></blockquote><p align="center"><img src="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/geocentrism/egyptian_world_map.gif" alt="Egyptian World Map" border="0" align="middle"></p><p>But one fact that defeats all efforts to use Job 26:7 to prove sphericity is that Job was rebuked by God for opening his mouth in the first place! Compare the verses below:</p><br /><table align="center" style="width: 375" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" valign="top"><tbody style="font-size: 11"><tr><td valign="top"><br /><p>Job Spouting Wisdom to His Friends</p><p>(Chapter 26)</p><p align="center"><u>Verse</u></p><p>(5) The departed spirits tremble under the <u>waters</u> and their inhabitants.</p><p>(6) Naked is <u>Sheol</u> before him and Abaddon (place of destruction) has no covering.</p><p>(7) He stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the <u>earth</u> without anything, on nothing.</p></td><td valign="top"><p>God Later Rebuking Job</p><p>(Chapter 38)</p><p align="center"><u>Verse</u></p><p>(16) Have you entered into the of the sea? Or have you walked in the recesses of the <u>deep?</u></p><p>(17) Have the <u>gates</u> <u>of</u> <u>death</u> been revealed to you? Or have you seen the <u>gates</u> <u>of</u> <u>deep</u> <u>darkness?</u></p><p>(18) Have you understood (or examined) the expanse of the <u>earth</u>? Tell me, if you know all this!</p></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Other questions God asked Job were, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth's (38:4); "On what were its bases sunk?" (38: 6) (Cf. "If the . . . foundations of the earth (can be) searched out below, then I will cast off . . . Israeli (Jeremiah 31:37).)</p><br /><p>Obviously, Job 26:7 is a questionable proof of sphericity. Yet that is the key verse quoted by opponents of a flat earth interpretation of Scripture! Further attempts to discover spherical passages in the Bible are even less convincing. For instance, creationist Henry Morris asserts that another verse in Job implies the rotation of the earth: "(The earth) is turned as clay to the seal" (Job 38:14--King James Version). Morris says, "The figure, in context, is of a clay vessel being turned on a wheel to receive the design imprinted upon it by a seal or signet, like the earth as it turns into the dawning sun, gradually revealing the intricate features on its surface." Of course this "rotating earth" interpretation of Job 38:14 is very modern (neither Luther nor Calvin, nor Mediaeval scholars in general knew of it). Moreover, Morris relies on the KJV translation without acknowledging that other translations do not fit his interpretation:</p><blockquote>*It is turned as clay to the seal"--King James Version<br />"It is changed like clay under the seal" --Revised Standard Version </blockquote><p>And, in context. . .</p><br /><p>Have you ever in your life commanded the morning,<br />And caused the dawn to know its place,<br />That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,<br />And the wicked be shaken out of it?<br />It is changed like clay under the seal:<br />And they stand forth like a garment<br />And from the wicked their light is withheld,<br />And the uplifted arm is broken<br />(--New American Standard Version of Job 38:12-15)</p><br /><p>According to these translations the earth is not <u>turned</u> like clay <u>to</u> the seal (KJV), but <u>changed</u> like clay <u>under</u> the seal (RSV and NASB), the clay most likely being in the form of an ancient writing tablet whose contours were changed under the seal of some magistrate, and not a clay vessel (cf. Morris) turned to the seal. Furthermore, there is evidence that in those days the Babylonians used cylindrical seals rolled on <u>stationary</u> clay. Either way, Morris' unique interpretation of Job 38:14 appears far from proven.</p><br /><p>Another argument of Morris' is that Luke 17:34-36 implies "both the roundness and rotation of the earth." Speaking of Jesus' second coming, the passage states, "In that night, there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women will be grinding together. . . Two men shall be in the field". "In other words", says Morris, "this great event will take place instantaneously at night, in the morning. and in the afternoon. Such a combination would be possible only on an earth in which day and night could be occurring simultaneously, and that means a rotating earth suspended in space". what Morris fails to notice is that Jesus' dictum that "No one knows the day <u>or</u> <u>the</u> <u>hour</u>" inspired Luke's <u>bedtime</u> illustration. The point is, depending on when it happens, it might be like this, or like that. Besides, Morris' argument was not proposed as such till <u>after</u> the rotation of the earth became an accepted fact. If here as elsewhere on Morris' reading, the biblical texts teach modern cosmology, why did the church never notice it until the era of modern astronomy?</p><br /><p>In conclusion, a flat earth interpretation of the Bible is not easily explained away. It remained popular even as late as A.D. 548 when a Christian monk, Cosmas Indicopleustes, composed one of the first "Bible-science" textbooks, <u>Christian Topography</u>, the first chapter of which was dedicated, "To those who, while professing Christianity, believe like the heathen, that the heavens are spherical". (Cosmas, by the way, quoted Job 26:7 in his manuscript in favor of a flat earth!) Even today. the International Flat Earth Society continues to publish its newsletter, which includes Bible quotations similar to the ones discussed above. plus "scientific" reasons why people are fooled into believing that the earth is a sphere. They remind readers that believers in a flat earth have existed for over six thousand years, the extent of recorded history, and that the basis of the Real Christian Religion is that Jesus died, was resurrected, and then <u>ASCENDED UP</u> to HEAVEN ABOVE. But if the pagan idiocy. the 'Grease Ball' theory is true, then there is no UP, no HEAVEN, no ABOVE! And what interest could God have with a speck of dust among billions of bigger and better specks?"</p><br /><p><u>How to Explain Away Geocentrism</u><br />Geocentrists get around flat earth interpretations by assuming beforehand that the Holy Spirit did not <u>mean</u> to teach flat earth science. How you answer the flat earth question thus depends on how much modern science you are willing to accept, and <u>not</u> on which biblical interpretation is superior. Geocentrists quote from the same Bible, a flat-earth-centered book, but explain away the flatness verses as metaphors, accepting only the earth-centered ones literally.</p><br /><p>Example 1: Ecclesiastes 1:5 tells us that "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose". So, according to Scripture, the sun moves. Read the Ecclesiastes verse again; it couldn't be plainer. Scripture also asserts that the earth stays put, or as John Calvin commented on Psalm 93 verse 1, "By what means could it (the earth) maintain itself unmoved, while the heavens above are in constant rapid motion, did not its Divine Maker fix and establish it? Accordingly the particle, aph, denoting emphasis, is introduced--'Yea, he hath established it (the earth)".</p><br /><p>Or take another passage. Joshua 10:12-13 states, "Joshua . . . said in the sight of Israel, 'O sun, stand still at Gibeon, and O<br />moon in the valley of Aijalon'. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their<br />enemies. . . So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about the whole day". One of Martin Luther's wily comments is appropriate here, "This man (Copernicus) wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but the sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." Quite true! Joshua even commanded the sun to stand still <u>at</u> <u>Gibeon</u>, and the moon, <u>in</u> <u>the</u> <u>valley</u> <u>of</u> <u>Aijalon</u>, which suggests that he may have viewed them as diminutive bodies passing over specific valleys or geographical regions on earth!</p><br /><p>Or take yet another passage. Psalm 19:4-6 depicts the sun "coming forth as a bridegroom from his chamber. . . rejoicing as a strong man to run its course. Its rising from one end of the heavens, and its circuit to the other end of them". Notice that Scripture does not similarly depict the earth's movement, except during an earthquake, during which all creation shakes, both heaven and earth! Job's earth "hanging on nothing" also appears to sit quite solidly in place.</p><br /><p>In view of the fact that the ancients did indeed believe that the sun moved across the heavens (e.g. the Egyptian "boat of the sun", or pictures of the Babylonian sun god rising from his mountain chamber and vaulting into the sky, and the ancient Greeks' astonishment when Anaxagoras suggested that the sun passing overhead may be as large as the Peloponnesus) it is not surprising to discover echoes of these beliefs in the Bible. The question is, how do nongeocentrists explain this away? Well, they explain them away the same way that geocentrists explain away the flat earth passages in Scripture, as "metaphors", or descriptions for "appearances' sake", and not to be taken literally. This of course disturbs the geocentrists who report "The only way one can know for sure whether or not geocentricism is true is to leave the universe, look back, and then return to report what's happening. Since only God's knowledge is of such immense scope, what the Bible says must be ultimately true. . . For if God cannot be taken literally when he writes of the rising of the <u>sun</u>, then how can he be taken literally when writing of the rising <u>Son</u>?</p><br /><p>Example 2: Besides the sun's movement, the Bible also depicts the stars' movement: "From heaven fought the stars, from their <u>courses</u> they fought against Sisera" (Judges 5:20). Of course to an earthbound observer the stars appear to follow wide circular courses through heaven each night. But another verse makes it clear that we are not dealing with mere appearances: "Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth (a constellation of stars) in their season (i.e., at the time of year they become visible, rising above the horizon), or can you guide the Bear (another constellation) with its children?" (Job 38:32). This is no mere appearance, for this verse states that God leads forth and guides the constellations (just as God is spoken of elsewhere as firmly establishing the earth). Leading and guiding are therefore actions that God performs. If God were teaching us that the <u>earth</u> moves, he would not have asked Job if he could lead forth or guide these constellations (in their season), but rather, if he could lead forth and guide the <u>earth</u> (in <u>its</u> season).</p><br /><p>Again, speaking of a star's movement. Matthew 2:9 tells us that a star "went before (the wise men), till it came to rest over the place where the child was". This is the tiny traveling star of Bethlehem. (It should be noted tangentially that attempts to make Matthew's star a conjunction of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn would, contrary to the aims of apologists, tend to show that Matthew's account is <u>mistaken</u>, since he plainly viewed it as an actual star. And planetary conjunctions can no more move over the Judean countryside than stars can.)</p><br /><p>Speaking further of the size of stars, notice what Mark 13:24-25 (Matthew 24:29) and Revelation 6:13-14 add: "The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken" (Mark); "And the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of heaven fell to earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale, the heavens vanished like a scroll that is rolled up" (Revelation). I've read that these verses depict meteorites (or atomic missiles!) and not stars falling to earth, since modern astronomy declares that even the smallest star is immensely larger than the earth. But if you explain away these verses that way, their power vanishes. For the point is not that the earth, a tiny planet, is being bombarded by meteors or bombs, but that God's creation is collapsing, the cosmos is coming to an end. This is precisely why God must create a new heaven (Revelation 21:1, 5). If anyone further disagrees that stars falling to earth cannot mean stars, he must also explain away Revelation 12:4 "His tail swept down a third of the stars," already visible, and not meteorites, which become visible only as they enter the atmosphere, in which case "one third of" has no meaning.</p><br /><p>So the Bible speaks of the end of the cosmos in tiny-falling-stars language, exactly as it speaks of the beginning of the cosmos, i.e., the tiny sun, moon, and stars "made" on day four, and "set" in heaven for the earth's light, seasons, and days (Genesis 1:14-18). Indeed, what can be made of a creation account that has the earth created ahead of the sun, moon, and stars? It certainly does not favor notions of the earth's movement. For what might the earth have orbited while it waited for the sun to be made? The obvious conclusion is that the Bible favors geocentricism (or flat earthism).</p><br /><p>In conclusion, a geocentric interpretation of the Bible is not easily explained away--Martin Luther and John Calvin remained strict geocentrists even during the advent of Copernican astronomy! Geocentrism remained popular as late as 1650, when the scientific consensus shifted to heliocentricity. And today it lives on in the form of the Tychonian Society. According to them, "Historians readily acknowledge that the <u>Copernican</u> <u>Revolution</u> spawned the bloody French and Bolshevik revolutions . . .set the stage for the ancient Greek dogma of evolution . . . led to Marxism and Communism . . . and is thus a small step to total rejection of the Bible and the precepts of morality and law taught therein". (Of course flat earthers' memories go back even further. For them, the evil was spawned once Christians accepted the ancient Greek dogma of a spherical earth.)</p><br /><p><u>How to Explain Away Young Earth Creationism</u><br />Naturally, young earth creationists get around geocentric interpretations by assuming beforehand that the Holy Spirit did not <u>mean</u> to teach geocentric astronomy, just <u>young</u> <u>earth</u> <u>geology</u>. They quote from the same bible, a flat earth centered book, but explain away flat and earth-centered passages as "metaphorical", accepting literally only those dealing with time. For in their opinion the creation of all the various planets and stars in the cosmos revolved conveniently around man's weekly time schedule, measured to six <u>earth</u>-days. What young earthers do not seem to realize is that this opinion fits ancient flat earth centered interpretations of Scripture better than modern Copernican ones. A day or even week on earth is no longer of any central value since the earth <u>no</u> <u>longer</u> <u>occupies</u> <u>the</u> <u>center</u> <u>of</u> <u>the</u> <u>cosmos</u>. It is merely one of nine planets whose "days" (as they spin on their axis around the sun) all <u>vary</u> <u>considerably</u> in length, with <u>earth</u> days no longer being <u>centrally</u> important for the measurement of cosmic time. Indeed, more modern and acceptable forms of time and space measurement are the speed of light and radioactive decay constants, which are true no matter what planet you inhabit.</p><br /><p>Creationists are always trying to show how these scientific constants vary, but such efforts do not avoid the laughter that their own belief in a precise six <u>earth</u>-day creation generates. earth-day creation generate. For daytimes or weekly times (i.e., approximately one quarter of the lunar cycle) experienced on earth naturally <u>appear</u> central to earth dwelling beings (but obviously not to the cosmos at large); just as the earth's situation in space <u>appears</u> central to earth dwellers gazing at celestial "movements" overhead, and the earth's flatness <u>appears</u> obvious to earth dwellers gazing at the horizon. In each case who is to decide which interpretation is of cosmic significance, or only of "apparent" significance? Was the <u>cosmos</u>--sun, moon, and stars, earth, etc.-created in six <u>earth</u> days? Did God really spend <u>five</u> of those days setting the <u>earth</u> in order, its waters, land, vegetation. animals, etc.. and spend only one earth day making the sun, moon, and stars? He didn't waste much time on the rest of the cosmos, did he?</p><br /><p>Anyone who has studied young earth creationist interpretations of the Bible has noted that they, in turn, are just as difficult to explain away as flat earth and geocentric interpretations.</p><br /><p>Example 1: Genesis chapter 1 states that God completed his creation in "six days", each consisting of "an evening and a morning", after which God "rested" on the "seventh day". Moreover, "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation" (Genesis 2:3). Exodus 20:8-11 adds, "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God. . .For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and sanctified it." The point of dividing the creation process into days, a feature that could easily be omitted without affecting the sense of the story, is to reinforce sabbath observance. These days of creation were therefore accepted as normal days of the week by the ancient Hebrews.</p><br /><p>Old earth creationists, dissatisfied with such an interpretation, point out that the Hebrew terms for "day" and days are also used in scripture to depict indefinite periods of time, as in "the day(s) of" a particular king or patriarch, or the "day" in which God created The heavens and the earth (Genesis 2:4). Other verses declare that a "day" in the Lord's eyes may be a thousand years in man's (Psalm 90:4; Peter 3:8). So who knows how long one of God's "days" may be? Speaking of the establishment of a sabbath "day" of the week, old earthers add that God also established a sabbath <u>year</u> (Exodus 23:10-11; Leviticus 25:3-7), and a jubilee sabbath--every seventy years (Leviticus 25: 8-17), which suggests that the emphasis on the sabbath is <u>rest</u> instead of the strict interpretation of days. In fact, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of entering into God's "rest", viz., the "seventh day" of creation, adding, "Since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he sets a certain day, 'Today'" (Hebrews 4:6-7a). So, the author of Hebrews employed an allegorical interpretation of the "seventh day" of the Genesis account.</p><br /><p>Other questions raised by old earth creationists are (1) Since the sun was not made till "day four", and the length of a "day" on earth depends on its axis spinning in respect to, sun, how can we on its axis spinning in respect to the sun, how can we be certain of the length of the three pre-sun "days" in Genesis? And (2) since each "day" in the creation account is not a traditional Hebrew "day" measured from evening to evening, but from "evening to <u>morning</u>" (Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31), it could be that the account represents seven daily awakening or visions granted the author of Genesis. Thus, the "days" may have nothing to do with the duration of creation so much as with the "evening to morning" periods during which the visions were received. Moreover, the "evening and morning" in Genesis make a <u>night</u>, not a day, if one wants to press the literal interpretation of these two items.</p><br /><p>Nevertheless, the attempts of old earth creationists to squeeze out an old earth interpretation from Scripture remain less convincing than the plain interpretation accepted by the ancient Hebrews themselves, as in Exodus 20, cited above. For the days in Genesis 1 are numbered, consecutive periods of light and darkness that add up to man's work week. That one of the Lord's days may be as one thousand years for man is true insofar as God stands above time, but this adds nothing to the plain interpretation of "days" in Genesis. Notice that on the fourth day the meaning is obvious literal, since the very purpose of the sun and moon is said to be to rule the "day" and "night". Old earth creationism would only appear reasonable if the Hebrew word <u>olam</u> (meaning "long, indefinite time") appeared in place of the Hebrew word for "day". And, though the author of Hebrews did cite the "seventh day" allegorically, this does not conflict with a literal belief in a "seventh day" of creation, nor does the existence of a sabbath year, or jubilee sabbath. These are all obviously intended as secondary applications of a literal original. And finally, there are no hints within the text that it is referring to a revelation received over a period of seven days.</p><br /><p>A young earth creationist interpretation of the Bible is not easily explained away. And there are further difficulties with old earth creationism.</p><br /><p>Old earth interpretations of Genesis 1 are of two major types, the Gap Theory and Day-Age Theories. According to the Gap Theory, the description of the "waste and void" earth in Genesis 1:2 is of an earth that "became" that way. This earth was God's first creation, which grew to be very old (as modern geology demonstrates), then was made "waste and void" by Satan. Gap theorists say that verses after Genesis 1:2 tell of the earth's <u>re</u>creation, which took six literal days. and occurred a few thousand years ago. This is quite a "gap" in the creation account; it is based primarily on an alternate translation of a single Hebrew verb: Gap theorists insist that Genesis 1: 2, on their reading, does not say that the earth "was" waste and void, but that it "became" waste and void. Notice, the gap between creations also swallows the entire geological past including Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon men found in the fossil record. Yet scripture says that Adam was the <u>first</u> man, and not a <u>re</u>creation of man (Genesis 2:4-7); Mark 10:6; Romans 5:12-14; I Corinthians 15:45; et al. And since the Gap Theory does not call into question the vast cosmological age and geological evidences of the "first" creation, we must suppose it took shape over vast ages of <u>progressive</u> creation, none of which the Bible mentions. However, the Bible has much to say about its "<u>re</u>creation" which took only six days!)</p><br /><p>Recently, among old earth creationists, the Gap Theory has become less popular than Day-Age Theories. The first basic Day-Age Theory the Overlapping Day-Age Theory, assumes that the "evening and morning" of each days in Genesis 1 are purely symbolic of the "beginning and end" of vast creative periods that overlap in geological time. The "days" are thus interpreted as vast ages in which were created the earth, sun, moon, and stars (day 1), the earth's atmosphere and oceans (day 2). the earth's dry land and vegetation (day 3), the clearing of the earth's atmosphere to see the sun, moon, and stars (day 4), the earth's air and sea animals (day 5), the earth's land animals and man (day 6). (Obviously, even accepting such an interpretation, billions of years of <u>cosmological</u> time, and the formation of billions of stars and galaxies zip by on "day 2". And God's attention appears to be focused purely on the earth.)</p><br /><p>The second basic Day-Age theory, the Modified Intermittent Day Age Theory, assumes that each "evening and morning" refers to an actual day that <u>introduces</u> a vast period of creative activity, till the next "introductory" day. The Day-Age sequences of this theory do not differ from those outlines above. (Notice that Day-Age theorists cannot admit that the "sun, moon . . .and stars" were "made" and "placed" in the heavens on "day four" (Genesis 1:16-17) since modern astronomy teaches that most stars and galaxies evolved far earlier than the midpoint of the <u>earth's</u> geologic ages. Besides, modern geology teaches that the sun and moon are certainly as old as the earth. Therefore, day-agers explain God's activity of "day four" as a "clearing of the atmosphere" to <u>see</u> the sun, moon, and stars, which they say were created on day one. However, the perspective behind the creation account is not that of an earthbound observer, i.e., one who sees the sun, moon, and stars through a "clearing atmosphere". Rather, the perspective is God's. He announces, let there <u>be</u> lights . . ." and God <u>made</u> the two great lights. . . the stars also, and God <u>placed</u> them in heaven, etc.)</p><br /><p>Day-Age theorists also have to face difficulties caused by God's gift of green plants for food for every living creature. For the creation account states that after God made the beasts of the earth and man on day six, he gave man "every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food" (Genesis 1: 29-30). Thus, God's (land and sky) creatures were all vegetarians! Modern geology, on the other hand, teaches that flesh-eating creatures of land and sky have existed for hundreds of millions of years. For instance, fossil dung of prehistoric land animals, preserved because of the relative stability of its components, contains fragments of bone, teeth, and hair. Moreover, we know that the amount of strontium incorporated in the bones of vegetarians will be higher since the strontium concentration in the plants they eat is relatively high, while in carnivores the amount is lower, since they eat the vegetarians who have already concentrated the strontium in their bones (and no place else). Therefore, carnivores do not absorb as much strontium in their bones, even after chewing the vegetarian's bones, which are simply eliminated. By comparing levels of strontium found in fossil (bone) remains of sharp-toothed-clawed creatures (presumably carnivores) with flat-toothed-husky creatures (presumable vegetarians), we can clearly see that carnivorous animals long antedated man. Prehistoric tools like spear points, axe heads, etc., also support the contention that prehistoric man hunted live game. What then becomes of the Genesis statement that every green plant was given to every land and sky animal for food?</p><br /><p>Perhaps the most untenable aspect of Day-Age Theories is their acceptance of the antiquity of man, <u>plus</u> the genealogical record in Genesis tracing man's ancestry to Adam. They suggest that <u>gaps</u> exist in the list of names of Adam's descendants, gaps that accommodate the geological date of man's earliest appearance on earth. This is a difficult accommodation since modern geology teaches that Archaic forms of Homo sapiens first appear about 500,000 years ago (the term covers a diverse group of skulls which have features of both Homo erectus and modern humans), while the genealogy in Genesis (chapters 5 and 11) contains only twenty names, i.e., from Adam (the first man), to Abraham ("historical" man). That’s an average "gap" between names of at least 25,000 years! But what conceivable purpose can there have been in carefully recording the age of each father at the birth of some unknown son who was then to be merely the remote ancestor of the next individual named on the list some 25,000 years in the future? Who ever heard of such a "genealogy?" Obviously, minor gaps may occur in the lists, such as we later find in Matthew’s selective genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17). But it is significant that the reliable historical records of ancient civilizations begin only a few thousand years ago (even as the biblical chronology of Genesis 5 and 11) and hence read without such lengthy "gaps." This would suggest by analogy that the genealogy in Genesis intends to chronicle a cosmos that is only a few thousand years old, going right back to Adam.</p><br /><p>Thus, old earth creationism fails to satisfy both the Bible and modern science and falls into an unbridgeable "gap" of its own.</p><br /><br /><p><u>Bible-science? Or Concessions Made to Modern Science?</u><br />As we have seen, the Bible contains no unequivocal verses depicting the earth's sphericity, its movement, or its non-centrality in terms of cosmic time. Rather, the young earth's <u>flat</u> <u>firm</u> <u>centrality</u> is affirmed throughout the Bible. The arguments employed to explain away young-flat-earth-centered verses reflect increasing <u>concessions</u> made over the ages to advances in our knowledge of astronomy, geology, etc., rather than adherence to biblical teaching. Typically, the arguments for a spherical earth, a moving earth, and an old earth were "discovered" in Scripture only <u>after</u> each of those facts had been first established by scientific means. I hope to have demonstrated to my readers that only two consistent choices face Christians embroiled in the creation/evolution controversy: slipping down to the bottommost circle of pseudoscientific "hell" to join the flat earthers, who allow the Bible to speak for itself; or recognizing with theistic evolutionists that the prescientific cosmology of the Bible forms no part of its message of salvation.</p><br /><p align="center"><u>BIBLIOGRAPHY</u></p><br /><p><u>Flat Earth</u><br />Cosmas Indicopleustes. ca. 550 A.D. <u>Topographia Christiana.</u><br />Trans. J. W. McCrindle. London: Hakluyt Society (1897).</p><br /><p>Flat Earth Newsletter. Lancaster, CA </p><br /><p><u>Geocentric</u><br />Gerardus D. Bouw. <u>Every Wind of Doctrine</u>.<br /><u>Bulletin of the Tychonian Society</u>. Cleveland, OH</p><br /><p><u>Young Earth</u><br />Henry M. Morris. <u>The Biblical Basis for Modern Science</u>. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1984.</p><br /><p>Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, CA</p><br /><p><u>Old Earth</u><br />Pattle Pu. <u>Evolution: Nature and Scripture in Conflict?</u><br />Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984.<br />Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute. Hatfield, PA </p><br /><p><u>Theistic Evolution</u><br />Conrad Hyers. <u>The Meaning of Creation</u> Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press. 1984.</p><br /><p><u>Theistic Evolutionists' Forum</u>, Greenville, SC</p><br /><p><u>Cosmologies and Cosmogonies of the Ancient Near East</u><br />Ed Babinski. <u>Does the Bible Teach Scientific Creationism?</u> 1984.</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/geocentrism/scientific_creationism.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-66227368580568249932012-03-26T19:36:00.001-07:002012-06-09T12:28:32.442-07:00Challenge to Dr. Kent Hovind to provide empirical evidence for Creationism<p><strong>Ed Babinski</strong>: "ED BABINSKI WILL GIVE 50 CENTS TO ANYONE WHO CAN PROVE THAT EVEN HALF OF KENT HOVIND"S CLAIMS ARE CORRECT, AND THAT GOES FOR HIS CLAIM TO HAVE A "DOCTORATE" DEGREE BASED ON A LEVEL OF COURSE COMPLETION AND STUDY THAT IS EVEN HALF AS RIGOROUS AS THE DOCTORATE DEGREES ACQUIRED AT GENUINE INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING."</p><br /><p><strong>Harry</strong>: Like all Creationists they also believe in "The Golden Rule" ... he who has the gold makes the rule. Even if he offered all the money and land he had, no one will EVER get one single cent of it because of his "Golden Rule". If he has lived 74 years believing this out-dated religious crap while denying facts, than anyone is simply foolish to waste time hoping to claim his illusive prize. </p><br /><table style="width: 176px; height: 31px" align="center" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" border=5><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://www.drdino.com/" target=_blank><img alt="ETB's .50 challenge !" hspace=0 src="http://edwardtbabinski.us/images/hovind.jpg" align="center" border=0></a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><blockquote><p>From: Sharon<br />To: "Ed Babinski"<br />Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2005<br />Subject: <strong>Has Kent Hovind Renigged on his 250K Offer?</strong></p><br /><p>I could not locate the challenge on his site.<br />What is the URL now if the offer still exists?</p><br /><p>When I checked the link this came up:</p><br /><p><strong>Not Found<br />The requested URL /Ministry/250k/index.jsp was not found on this server.</strong></p><br /><p>Apache/2.0.53 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.0.53 OpenSSL/0.9.7d PHP/5.0.3 Server at www.drdino.com Port 80</p></blockquote><br /><p>On 7/29/2005 2:58:09 AM, John Stear wrote:<br />Subject: Hovind's 250K Offer, Gone?</p><br /><p>[...]</p><br /><p><em><a href="http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/kent_hovind's_phony_challenge.htm" target="_blank">No Answers in Genesis -- Kent Hovind'd Phony Challenge</a></em></p><br /><p>It's from my Hovind page you quoted.</p><br /><p>Cheers</p><br /><p>John</p><br /><p>Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. This is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast on nature.<br /> --Jacob Bronowski (1908 - 1974) British historian and mathematician.</p><br /><p>Be sure to visit my web site "<a href="http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/" target="_blank">No Answers in Genesis</a>"</p><br /><p>Now, let's take a look at what Dave Matson has to say:<br /><a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood.html" target="_blank">How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?</a><br />A Close Look at Dr. Hovind's List of Young-Earth Arguments and Other Claims</p><br /><strong>Are you up to Ed's Challenge?</strong><br /><p><a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/feedback/fifty_dollar_challenge.html" target="_blank">Anna takes the Fifty Dollar (now reduced to fifty cents) Challenge</a></p><br /><p><strong>"Betting on Geocentrism"</strong><br />(Kent Hovind's 'Bet' not Unique)<br />ED: Here is an article about Elmendorf, who has a standing offer of $10,000 for a proof that the Earth moves around the Sun, and $5,000 for a proof that the Earth rotates on its axis.</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20020121brian0121p1.asp" target="_blank">Who said there's nothing new under the sun?</a><br />by Brian O'Neill (post-gazette.com)<br />Monday, January 21, 2002</p><br /><p>As we're nearing the end of our conversation at his dining room table, R.G. Elmendorf says to me, "I have the perfect title for your column: 'Crackpot in Glenshaw'." The next morning, a letter arrives in my mailbox. It's from Elmendorf, suggesting that "Off-the-Wall in Glenshaw" might be better. As I don't write the headlines, I don't know what the editor is calling this, but I mention it to make clear that Elmendorf, 74, is well aware of how far out his quest is.</p><br /><p>He has spent more than two decades offering a reward to anyone who can prove what almost everyone believes: The Earth revolves around the sun. He recently upped that reward offer from $1,000 to $10,000: five grand to anyone who offers "scientific proof positive" that the Earth orbits the sun; another five grand to anyone who proves that the Earth rotates on its axis. He doesn't expect to have to take out a second mortgage to pay anyone soon.</p><br /><p>How often do you meet a guy willing to take on Copernicus and Galileo anymore? For generations, schoolchildren have been making Styrofoam solar systems with a big ol' sun in the middle and the nine planets hanging out on wires. Here's a guy suggesting they might have deserved Fs. He's not sure, mind you. He just believes it's an open question -- hence, the funky steel model that was on his dining room table when I arrived. It was an armillary sphere, not unlike the ones used back in the pre-Copernican day, with Earth at the center of the solar system and the sun just another orb spinning round. By my unskilled calculations, the Earth has been around the sun nearly 22 times since Elmendorf first offered the reward on March 10, 1980. The Earth has rotated on its axis almost 8,000 times. But I can't prove that. That's the rub.</p><br /><p>"The required proof must be direct, observable, physical, natural, repeatable, unambiguous and comprehensive -- in other words, conclusive scientific evidence of the celestial state of affairs," his reward offer states. "Hearsay, popular opinion, 'expert' testimony, majority vote, personal conviction, organizational ruling, conventional usage, superficial analogy, appeal to 'simplicity' or other indirect means of persuasion do not qualify as scientific proof." In short, he is harder to convince than the O.J. jury. As his wife of 51 years, Virginia, made coffee, I asked what had led him down this celestial path. He's no astrophysicist. A mechanical engineer who earned his degree from Cornell University in 1950, he has an engineering, design and fabrication shop in West Deer, 10 winding miles north of his home. (Don't drive behind him; his license plate warns "STACALM" because he drives as slowly and meticulously as he does everything else.) His unconventional journey began conventionally enough. He became a fundamentalist Christian, accepting the Bible as the literal truth. That led him to question scientific wisdom. When he discovered the "Copernican arrangement" of the solar system hadn't really been proven, at least to his engineering standards, he was shocked. </p><br /><p>Don't tell him about the Foucault Pendulum, the 19th-century device that purportedly shows that our planet rotates beneath a pendulum whose motion remains fixed in space. Elmendorf self-published an 82-page book in 1994 declaring the pendulums fakes. </p><br /><p>"I've pretty much concluded the proof isn't out there," he said.<br />The problem is distinguishing between a moving Earth and a moving universe. I'm told not even Isaac Newton solved that problem. The astronauts haven't gotten us any closer to the truth either, according to Elmendorf. </p><br /><p>If you think you have what NASA and Newton lacked, write to R.G. Elmendorf at 208 S. Magnolia Drive, Glenshaw 15116. Because when the sun sets -- excuse me, appears to set -- tonight, Elmendorf will still be sitting on his money.<br />Brian O'Neill's e-mail address is boneill@post-gazette.com. </p><br /><hr color="black" align="left" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><p><a href="http://www.endofman.com/True_Religion/galileoheresy.htm" target="_blank">Paula Haigh, a Roman Catholic geocentrist</a>.</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/geocentr.htm" target="_blank">Malcolm Bowden</a> (geocentrist, creationist)<br /><a href="http://www.mbowden.surf3.net" target="_blank">M. Bowden</a></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.fixedearth.com" target=_blank>www.fixedearth.com</a></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.geocentricity.com" target="_blank">Gerardus Bouw</a> (bible believing geocentrist, astronmer)</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.student.oulu.fi/~ktikkane/eU_LITT2.html" target="_blank">Kari Tikkamen</a> list of links on this bizarre subject</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/evolution/</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-32432608037937702752012-03-26T17:09:00.001-07:002012-06-09T12:17:05.139-07:00Ed Conrad's "Man as old as Coal"<blockquote><p>Ed Conrad" edconrad@shenhgts.net<br />If Established Science is correct about the age of coal, man found between anthracite veins -- the oldest coal -- would have existed 280,000,000 years ago -- give or take a few million years.</p><br /><p>If Established Science is dead wrong about the age of coal -- that it instead was formed multi-millions of years more recently -- then man is still older than the teensy-weensy animals from whom you evolutionists claim we evolved.</p></blockquote><br /><p>ED BABINSKI:</p><br /><p>Ed Conrad thinks he has found human bones in coal dating back to the Carboniferous?</p><br /><p>I'm not interested. Geologists have known for several centuries that the geologic and fossil record is not as mixed up as Ed dreams it is.</p><br /><p>Right down to microfossils being in distinct layers, right down to fossil fragments being in distinct layers. Right down to coal and chalk deposits in Great Britain not being mixed together, but in distinct layers. Right down to certain species of coral found only above other species, never below them. Right down to certain species of molluscs, no matter what their relative sizes, being found only above other species, never below them. Right down to places on earth where representative sediments and fossils from ten or more distinct geological ages are found in the EXACT PREDICTED ORDER. Yes, there are places on earth like that, rocks representing all of those ages in the exact order. In other places where the rocks only represent a few ages, they again are in the expected order. And so forth. In most cases the only differences are that in-between sequences of the rocks were not laid down so they are absent, or they eroded away before the sequences above them were laid down. The fact is that the geologic record defies "flood geology" explanations. It is a lot of discrete layers in a specific order, right down to microfossils and fossil fragments (Ed Conrad's rocks and pieces of coal only resemble the shapes of genuine fossils, they are not fossils however, and he seems to be one of the few people in all the world who is capable of finding such oddities, oh, along with Carl Baugh, the Paluxy "man print" salesman. Other young-earth creationists have moved out of the business of trying to "sell" the Paluxy "man prints" as genuine human footprints alongside dino-prints, and that includes ICR and AIG, the two largest young-earth creationists organizations in the world, heck, if Ed Conrad can't sell THOSE organizations his oddly shaped rock concretions as "genuine out of place mammal fossils," them he sure as hell is never going to sell his rocks to the rest of the geologically informed world of scientists.</p><br /><p>Ed Conrad has even been chastized for his pseudoscientific tomfoolery by Kurt Wise, a Harvard trained paleontologist and young-earth creationist.</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/evolution/ed_conrad.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-42695390052585418732012-03-26T17:03:00.001-07:002012-06-09T12:16:13.805-07:00Dinosaur Bones and the Age of the Earth<p><strong>DINOSAUR BONES AND THE AGE OF THE EARTH</strong><br />by Edward T. Babinski </p><br /><p>A <a href="http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/03/20050328_a_main.asp" target="_blank">dinosaur bone was recently discovered that contains soft tissue</a> inside. As of March 28, 2005, the University of Montana scientists have not completed their chemical analyses of the soft tissues, so they admit they don't know what they have yet.</p><br /><p>Young Earth Creationists at "Answers in Genesis" are claiming this new discovery proves their view is correct and the age of the earth is very young.</p><br /><p>Until the chemical analysis is complete concerning the latest discovery, I can only recount a few earlier dinosaur bone discoveries and the ways creationists have attempted to cite them as evidence of a young earth, and the rebuttals that further scientific analysis provided.</p><br /><p><strong>EARLIER DISCOVERY OF EVIDENCE OF BIOLOGICAL MOLECULES INSIDE DINOSAUR BONES</strong><br />A previous discovery in the news suggested prematurely that "dinosaur blood cells" might have been found, but the subsequent chemical analysis did not demonstrate that red blood cells had been found, neither were they able to discover the presence of hemoglobin molecules. What they found was "heme," which is not a complete hemoglobin molecule, but a part of a broken down hemoglobin molecule, the part that the iron atom attaches to. There are four heme sites in each hemoglobin molecule where the iron attaches to the molecule. Heme is "an iron-porphyrin compound that occurs as a prosthetic group in hemoproteins."</p><br /><p>Look at this diagram"<a href="http://www.clunet.edu/BioDev/omm/catalase/frames/hemetx.htm" target="_blank">heme</a>"</p><br /><p>And compare "heme" with what a full "<a href="http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/hemoglob.html" target="_blank">hemoglobin molecule</a>" looks like.</p><br /><p>Here is a picture of just <a href="http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/hgb.html" target="_blank">one of the four separate chains</a> of the above "hemoglobin molecule," showing more specifically where "heme" is located inside one chain</p><br /><p>A single "red blood cell" consists of a vast number of "hemoglobin molecules" as well as still vaster numbers of other kinds of molecules. No dinosaur "red blood cells" was found, no dinosaur "hemoglobin" was found, only remnants of "heme." The DNA was also broken down.</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dinosaur/blood.html" target="_blank">Dino-blood and the Young Earth</a>. Answers in Genesis claims that paleontologist Mary Schweitzer found "obvious, fresh-looking blood cells" and traces of blood protein hemoglobin in a Tyrannosaurus rex bone. It further claims that this demonstrates that the dinosaur could not have lived millions of years ago. AiG's claims are not the result of rigorous analysis, but the result of selective quoting and misrepresentation of popular science articles.</p><br /><hr color="black" align="left" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><p><strong>DO DINOSAUR BONES EXIST THAT ARE "TOO LITTLE MINERALIZED" TO BE "SO OLD?"</strong></p><br /><p>CREATIONIST: Dinosaur fossils found in Alaska in 1961 were so LITTLE mineralized that they could not possibly be at least 65 million years old.</p><br /><p>ED'S REPLY: On <a href="http://www.ak.blm.gov/ak930/akdino.html" target="_blank">fossilization rates</a>, see the United States Department of the Interior's website.</p><br /><p><strong>NORTH SLOPE DINOSAUR FOSSILS</strong><br />While we might presume that remains more than 65 million years old would have turned to "solid rock" long ago, that's not true for all dinosaur bones found in northern Alaska. So far, all recovered bones are highly mineralized and discolored by iron oxide, but they still have differences. Some are relatively light and porous while others are heavy and dense. The differences relate to the amounts of minerals, notably silica, which have replaced what was once living cell matter while additionally filling in bone pores. In some specimens, bone cells and pores have been mostly replaced or filled in by minerals. In others, just cell walls and little else have been mineralized leaving many open pores. Thus, bones with less mineral replacement are light and more porous than bones with lots of mineral replacement. </p><br /><p><strong>DNA STUDIES AND NORTH SLOPE DINOSAUR BONES </strong><br />So far, no DNA has been found in dinosaur bones of the North Slope. When they were first discovered in the 1980s, and before they were studied, the relatively light weight of several bones caused speculation that they might contain a lot of the original bone tissue from the once-living dinosaur. Since then, the result of studies have not supported this idea. Instead, they have shown that the bones are highly mineralized with none yet proven to contain recoverable dinosaur DNA or anything else from the living dinosaur. So is that the end of the story? Not quite .... Though not yet well-studied and certainly unproven so far, among the best candidates for containing recoverable bio molecular material (maybe even DNA), are dinosaur bones with lots of silica mineralization. In those, there is a possibility that silica could have encapsulated and thus helped protect some original cell matter. But whether such ancient material, if it exists, could be viable or extractable is also unknown. Thus, future DNA hunters may indeed wish to continue studying North Slope dinosaur bones. And their findings could surprise us all!</p><br /><p>"<a href="http://www.llnl.gov/ees/cams/microprobe/dinopixe.html" target="_blank">Diagenetic alteration of dinosaur bone</a>"<br />Referring to fossil bones from the Liscomb Bone Bed, it states: "Concentrations of many of these elements are at least an order of magnitude higher than those in modern reptilian and mammalian bones. Such data indicate that significant diagentic alteration may have occurred in the dinosaur bones."</p><br /><p><strong>EVIDENCE OF FOSSILIZATION IN SO-CALLED "UNFOSSILIZED" DINOSAUR BONES EVIDENCE FOR POSTMORTEM ENRICHMENT IN LATE CRETACEOUS DINOSAUR BONE USING MICROBEAM</strong><br />PIXE GOODWIN, Mark B., Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA; and Graham Bench and Patrick Grant, Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA<br />The effects of diagenesis on the geochemistry of fossils are poorly understood. The alteration of stable isotopes by fossilization creates uncertainty about the preservation of original biogenic isotope values. The use of stable oxygen isotopes from dinosaur bones and teeth to reconstruct dinosaur thermophysiology remains controversial due to potential overprinting by diagenesis. Studies using stable isotopes for dietary or physiological reconstructions are commonly based on the assumption that postmortem alteration of the fossil did not occur or that its effects are negligible. Successful isotope analysis of fossil bone for the purposes of determining paleophysiology depends upon the retention of original isotope atoms in the bone phosphate. If the chemical composition of dinosaur bone is affected by dissolution, recrystallization, or mineral substitution from the burial environment, the measured oxygen isotope ratio may reflect groundwater temperature, not dinosaur body temperature. PIXE, coupled with microsampling and mass spectrometry, is a potent analytical tool to assess diagenesis in fossils. Nuclear microscopy using Proton Induced X-ray Emission (or microbeam PIXE) provides accurate quantitative values, multi-element detection, sub-micron spatial resolution to ppm or mg/g sensitivity, and elemental maps of micron regions of bone. A thin section from an exceptionally well preserved Late Cretaceous hadrosaur femur (UCMP 179501) from Alaska's North Slope was subject to PIXE analysis. This fossil does not show typical signs of alteration at a macro and micron scale, but is highly altered nonetheless. PIXE analysis reveals enrichment of Fe (180,000 ppm) and Mn (13,000 ppm) in the lamellae surrounding Haversian canals and neighboring tissue of several magnitudes higher than levels known in modern bone. A corresponding depletion of Ca and P also occurs. This enrichment is most likely due to diagenesis from the burial environment since Fe and Mn are present in modern bone in only minute amounts. PIXE analysis of a modern Caiman and Rhea confirm this.<br />Goodwin (2001), above, refuted the alleged unlatered ("fresh") nature of dinosaur bones found along the Colville River in Alaska. The abstract for this paper can be found in Re: Colville River, North Slope Alaska, Dinosaur Fossils Questions</p><br /><hr color="black" align="left" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><p><strong>FURTHER INFORMATION OF INTEREST IN THE DEBATE OVER EVOLUTION AND CREATION</strong><br />CREATIONIST STATEMENTS AND WEBSITES RELATED TO THE QUESTION OF HUMAN EVOLUTION</p><br /><p>Two quotations from creationists:</p><br /><p>`I was surprised to find that instead of enough fossils barely to fit into a coffin, as one evolutionist once stated [in 1982], there were over 4,000 hominid fossils as of 1976. Over 200 specimens have been classified as Neandertal and about one hundred as Homo erectus. More of these fossils have been found since 1976.<br />--Michael J. Oard [creationist], in his review of the book, Bones of Contention -- A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 30, March 1994, p. 222</p><br /><p>`The current figures [circa 1994] are even more impressive: over 220 Homo erectus fossil individuals discovered to date, possibly as many as 80 archaic Homo sapiens fossil individuals discovered to date, and well over 300 Neandertal fossil individuals discovered to date.<br />Marvin L. Lubenow [creationist], author of Bones of Contention<br />-- A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, in a letter to the editor of the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 31, Sept. 1994, p. 70</p><br /><p>"<a href="http://www.theistic-evolution.com/transitional.html" target="_blank">Transitional Fossils of Hominid Skulls</a>" by Carl Drews, a Christian evolutionist, "By 2000 enough pre-human fossils had been recently discovered to form a clearer picture of human ancestry, something that was difficult 20 years earlier. This web page contains an illustration of those skulls, displayed in a lineup so that you can compare them and see if they look like transitional fossils or not. I have provided my own commentary, but feel free to analyze them yourself and draw your own conclusions."</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CC0" target="_blank">Index to Creationist Claims Concerning Human Evolution</a></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/compare.html" target="_blank">Creationists themselves</a> cannot agree which species are humans and which are apes</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morphological_intermediates_ex3" target="_blank">Humans and Apes</a></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/cre_args.html" target="_blank">Creationism and Human Evolution</a></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp" target="_blank">Arguments We Think Creationists Should Not Use</a> (A must read article at the Young-Earth Creationist site, Answers in Genesis)</p><br /><p><a href="http://darwin.ws/contradictions/" target="_blank">Debunking Creation Science</a> With Creation Science</p><br /><p>"<a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/babinski/hypothesis.html" target="_blank">Creationists Admit Difficulties With Their Hypothesis</a>"</p><br /><p><strong>CHRISTIAN EVOLUTIONISTS</strong><br />In a court case in Cob country, Georgia in which the school board lost their battle to insert "Evolution is only a theory" stickers inside a biology text, the "offending" book in question was written by a Christian, <a href="http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/index.html" target="_blank">Dr. Kenneth Miller</a>. How ironic. Besides having authored a widely used biology textbook, Miller is also the author of Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.</p><br /><p>Another noted Christian and evolution is Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project. Collins has stated: "I am unaware of any irreconcilable conflict between scientific knowledge about evolution and the idea of a creator God; why couldn't God have used the mechanism of evolution to create?...In my field, biology, because of the creationists the standard assumption is that anyone who has faith has gone soft in the head. When scientists like me admit they are believers, the reaction from colleagues is 'How did this guy get tenure?'" (Gregg Easterbrook, "Science and God: A Warming Trend?" Science, Vol. 277, No. 5328, Aug. 15 1997, p. 890-893) </p><br /><p><strong>BOOKS BY CHRISTIAN EVOLUTIONISTS</strong><br />Random Designer: Created From Chaos To Connect With Creator by Dr. Colling (fundamentalist Christian and chair of Biology at a fundamentalist Christian college). According to Dr. Colling, "It pains me to suggest that my religious brothers are telling falsehoods" when they say evolutionary theory is "in crisis" and claim that there is widespread skepticism about it among scientists. "Such statements are blatantly untrue," he argues. "Evolution has stood the test of time and considerable scrutiny... What the designer designed is the random-design process," or Darwinian evolution, Colling says. "God devised these natural laws, and uses evolution to accomplish his goals." ["Teaching Evolution at Christian College" by Sharon Begley, The Wall Street Journal (December 31, 2004)]</p><br /><p>Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003) Edited by <a href="http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/Book_Ann.html" target="_blank">Dr. Keith B. Miller</a> (professor of geology at Kansas State Univ), not to be confused with Dr. Kenneth Miller.<br />Keith's book includes essays by the following Christians:<br />Terry Gray (Colorado State)<br />James Hurd (Bethel College)<br />Ted Davis (Messiah College)<br />Robin Collins (Messiah College)<br />David Wilcox (Eastern College)<br />Mark Noll (Wheaton College)<br />Jeff Greenberg (Wheaton College)<br />Laurie Braaten (Judson College)<br />John Munday, Jr. (Regent Univ.)<br />Loren Haarsma (Calvin College)<br />Howard Van Till (Calvin College)<br />Deborah Haarsma (Calvin College)<br />Warren Brown (Fuller Theological)<br />David Campbell (University of Alabama)<br />Jennifer Wiseman (Johns Hopkins Univ.)<br />Conrad Hyers (Gustavus Adolphus College)<br />George Murphy (Trinity Lutheran Seminary)<br />Bob Russell (Center for Theology and Natural Sciences)</p><br /><p>God and Evolution (Nov. 2004)<br />by David L. Wilcox (Ph.D. in Population Genetics, Professor of Biology, Eastern College, St. David's, PA.) </p><br /><p><a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/index.htm" target="_blank">Darwinism Defeated?</a> A debate between Phillip E. Johnson (I.D.ist) and Denis O. Lamoureux Ph.D. (biologist/evolutionist and Evangelical Christian<br />Apparently Johnson does not offer copies of this debate book for sale at his website, or didn't, last I looked.</p><br /><p>God Created the Heavens and The Earth<br />by Donald Nield (Professor of Engineering Science at Auckland University)</p><br /><p>A Seamless Web: Science and Faith<br />Evolving Creation<br />God's Books: Genetics and Genesis<br />by Graeme Finlay (Cell Biologist who lectures in General Pathology in the<br />Department of Molecular Medicine and Pathology at Auckland University)</p><br /><p>The God of Evolution: A Trinitarian Theology (New York: Paulist, 1999)<br />Jesus and the Cosmos (New York: Paulist, 1991)<br />by Denis Edwards</p><br /><p>Deeper Than Darwin: The Prospect for Religion in the Age of Evolution<br />(Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003)</p><br /><p>God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000)<br />by John F. Haught</p><br /><p>Darwin's Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter between Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987)by David N. Livingstone</p><br /><p>The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens Are Telling Us about the Creation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986)<br />"The Creation: Intelligently Designed or Optimally Equipped?" Theology Today 55 (1998): 344-364<br />by Dr. Howard J. Van Till (astronomer, Calvin College)</p><br /><p>Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity: Questions to Science and Christianity<br />(New York: Crossroad, 1994)<br />Science and Theology: An Introduction (London: SPCK, 1998)<br />The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001) A book of essays by assorted theistic evolutionists that explores the Biblical concept of kenosis (self-emptying) and the doctrine of creation in light of evolutionary thought.<br />by John Polkinghorne (Ordained Anglican priest, former Cambridge professor of theoretical physics, and prolific author, Polkinghorne is perhaps the world's leading advocate for a serious, constructive dialogue between modern science and Christian theology)</p><br /><p>Cosmos and Creator (Scottish Academic Press, l979; Regnery Gateway, 1980),<br />An analysis of the bearing of modern cosmological theories on the Christian dogma of the creation of the universe, followed by the history of that dogma, its philosophical presuppositions, and its relation to evolutionary theories of man.<br />Genesis 1 Through the Ages (London: Thomas More Press, 1992) with illustrations. A history of the interpretations of Genesis 1 from biblical times to the present day, with an emphasis on the ever-present lures of concordism. Eight lectures delivered April 25- May 9, 1992, in New York on behalf of Wethersfield Institute.<br />Bible and Science (Front Royal, VA: Christendom Press, 1996) An analysis of the biblical world view and basic Biblical propositions insofar as they relate to science and to its history.<br />by Stanley L. Jaki (Benedictine priest, doctorates in both theology and physics)</p><br /><hr style="width: 50%; height: 1px" color="black" align="left"><br /><p><strong>WEBSITES OF CHRISTIAN EVOLUTIONISTS</strong><br /><a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/creationism/darwin.html" target="_blank">Darwin's Forgotten Christian Defenders</a></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/evolution/christian_evolution.html" target="_blank">Three Cheers For Christian Evolutionists</a></p><br /><p>From <a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/babinski/evangelicals.html" target="_blank">Abandoning Geocentrism To Accepting Evolution</a>: A "Liberal Trend" Among Evangelical Christians?</p><br /><p>DWISE1'S <a href="http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/" target="_blank">Creation/Evolution Page</a><br />(On the Danger of Losing One's Faith Due to Fallacious Creationist Arguments, and why Christians must remain open to theistic evolution)</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.answersincreation.org/evolution.htm" target="_blank">Christian Evolutionists</a> (and lots of old-earth arguments, including <a href="http://answersincreation.org/testimony.htm" target="_blank">testimonies</a> of former Young-Earthers)</p><br /><p>Dr. Robert J. Schneider's <a href="http://www.berea.edu/specialproject/scienceandfaith/default.asp" target="_blank">Science and Faith</a> essays</p><br /><p><a href="http://members.aol.com/steamdoc/writings.htm" target="_blank">Dr. Allan H. Harvey</a>'s essays</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/anthony_garrett/esct.html" target="_blank">Dr. Anthony Garrett</a> (former atheist and member of Australia's skeptic society who became a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s17040.htm" target="_blank">Christian evolutionist</a>)</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.faithreason.org/" target="_blank">John D. Callahan</a> (aithor of Science and Christianity, and his debate with YEC Kent Hovind is on the web)</p><br /><p><a href="http://groups.msn.com/ChristiansForEvolution" target="_blank">ChristiansForEvolution</a> newsgroup</p><br /><p>The <a href="http://www.cin.org/jp2evolu.html" target="_blank">Pope's Message</a> On Evolution</p><br /><p><a href="http://internetmonk.com/underground/index.php?p=22" target="_blank">Another former YEC</a></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/babinski/inerrancy.html" target="_blank">Fine-Tuners Who Reject I.D. Arguments</a></p><br /><p><a href="http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill" target="_blank">Keith B.Miller</a> (professor of geology at Kansas State Univ, and editor of Perspectives on an Evolving Creation)</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.meta-library.net/bio/hvt-body.html" target="_blank">Howard J. Van Till</a> (Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy at Calvin College)</p><br /><p>"<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/chance/chance-theistic.html" target="_blank">Chance From a Theistic Perspective</a>" (The Perspectives of Two Evangelical Christian Evolutionists: Donald MacKay and John Polkinghorne)</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.polkinghorne.org" target="_blank">John Polkinghorne</a>'s web site with helpful links</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.theistic-evolution.com/index.html" target="_blank">Carl Drews</a></p><br /><p>Christian Evolutionism at the <a href="http://www.asa.org" target="_blank">ASA website</a> (American Scientific Association, an organization of <a href="http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/evolution/index.shtml" target="_blank">Evangelical Christains</a> who are scientists,includes both <a href="http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Evolution/murphy__van_dyke_dialogue.html#Theistic%20Evolution" target="_blank">old-earth creationists and theistic evolutionists</a>)</p><br /><p><a href="http://home.entouch.net/dmd/dmd.htm" target="_blank">Glenn Morton</a></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.bibleandscience.com" target="_blank">Stephen Meyers</a>'s website</p><br /><p>Webpage that features the article, "<a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/id_for_dummies.html" target="_blank">I.D. For I.Dummies</a>"</p><br /><p><a href="http://zygoncenter.org/about_who.html" target="_blank">Zygon</a> (journal)</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/1028_statements_from_religious_org_12_19_2002.asp" target="_blank">Voices For Evolution</a>: Statements From Religious Organizations</p><br /><p>Another <a href="http://plaza.ufl.edu/dmorgan/" target="_blank">Christian evolutionist</a></p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/evolution/dinosaur_earth.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-90710555468472523972012-03-20T18:49:00.001-07:002012-06-09T11:05:11.570-07:00Jonah, the Fish and the Whale<blockquote><p><strong>Jonah, The Whale and Pre-Scientific Ignorance</strong></p><br /><p>In the one biblical account, it's called a whale.<br />In another biblical account, it's called a fish.</p><br /><p>The Biblical authors didn't know a whale, isn't a fish.<br />They were unaware whales were mammals.</p></blockquote><br /><hr style="WIDTH: 50%; HEIGHT: 1px" align="left" color="black"><br /><p>I think it's safe to say that the ancients had no idea as to what whales were (i.e., mammals). Hence, in using the modern word "whale," which implies a mammal, the translation cannot be entirely correct as it implies more knowledge than the ancients had. Therefore, pointing out that a whale is not a fish is to rely on a translational imperfection. Ditto for the ancient Hebrew for "fish."<br />For all we know, that could include most swimming creatures, big and small, whales included. Can we safely impart the scientific meaning to their word? The burden of proof would fall on those claiming an error.</p><br /><p>On the other hand, this defense never allows God, who supposedly wrote the Bible in the view of inerrancy advocates, to rise above primitive ignorance. What an opportunity was missed! God could have shown his stuff by distinguishing between the two. Moreover, we have a clear error in the way most modern Bibles are translated. How many more errors, possibly of great significance, remain hidden? If the Bible we have in our hands isn't right with respect to whales, why should it be right in other matters?<br /><p>Best Wishes,<br />Dave E. Matson<br /><a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/catalog.html" target="_top">Oak Hill Free Press</a><br />California, USA</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/creationscience/jonah.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-89278297650591176982012-03-20T18:42:00.001-07:002012-06-09T11:03:59.388-07:00Giants in Early Australia<p>Marshall writes: See this website, and <a href="http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Sciences/LifeScience/PhysicalAnthropology/AbnormalStatures/ThereWereGiants/ThereWereGiants.htm" target="_blank">Australian finds tools and fossils</a> of giant Australians!</p><br /><p>ED: The author of the above article, "And There Were Giants" (published in the Psychic Australian, Oct. 1976) is Rex Gilroy, a believer in pyramids lying far beneath the seas and lots of other unusual stuff to say the least. See <a href="http://www.internetezy.com.au/~mj129/Mysterious_Australia_Homepage.html" target="_blank">Gilroy's homepage</a></p><br /><p>Note that the photos in Gilroy's article are all of himself and his so-called "discoveries," namely a few large rocks and some casts of what he claims are genuine "giant human footprints." Rex vainly tries to "link" his discoveries with those of the famous anthropologist, Dr. Ralph von Koenigswald, who discovered fossilized teeth and jaw remains of the largest known species of ancient ape, Giganopithecus.</p><br /><p><strong>PROBLEMS:</strong><br />1) Rex cites only the most exagerrated height figures for Gigantopithecus. Gigantopithecus (of the Middle Pleistocene of what is now northern Vietnam and southern China) featured males that stood an estimated 9 ft tall and weighed about 272 kg 600 lb. Please note that it is risky in the case of large primates to correlate tooth size and jaw depth of primates with their height and body weight, and Gigantopithecus may have had a disproportionately large head, jaws and teeth for his body size. So it could have been smaller than 9 ft. tall. And the only Gigantopithecus remains that have been discovered so far are three partial lower jaws and more than 1,000 teeth.</p><br /><p>2) Rex wants to believe that the fossilized teeth and jaw remains of Gigantopithecus point to it having been human. It was not. See, "<a href="http://www.uiowa.edu/~bioanth/giganto.html" target="_blank">The Ape That Was</a>: Asian Fossils Reveal Humanity's Giant Cousin" by Russell L. Ciochon for a detailed discussion of why Gigantophithecus was a species of ape.</p><br /><p>3) Rex believes his rocks are "tools," yet I don't see any chisel marks or even usage marks on those mishapen rocks that Rex picked up. (And if young-earth creationists believe in "giants before the Flood" and that Rex's "human giant" was one of them, they ought to also consider the old adage "sinks like a stone," and ask themselves how Rex's huge "stone tools" floated on the waves during "The Flood of Noah.")</p><br /><p>4) Rex's so-called genuine "human footprints" are flat, they have no arch, the toes looked splayed in a fake fashion. Just check out these photos of them at <a href="http://www.internetezy.com.au/~mj129/yowie_plaster_casts.html" target="_blank">Rex's page</a></p><br /><p>In short his "human footprints" lack any true anatomical features. And furthermore, he apparently found them lying on the topmost surface of the land, the prints were not dug up beneath any sediments. And he claims they were made recently, and that such creatures are alive now. He calls these creatures "Yowies." Below is a story of someone who took a trip with Rex in the outback looking for evidence of his beloved "<a href="http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-03/i-files.html" target="_blank">Yowie</a>."</p><br /><p>The yowie, on the other hand, has left only meager traces of its supposed existence, like those of other hairy man-beasts reported around the world. These include the Himalayan yeti, the North American sasquatch, and similar creatures alleged to inhabit remote regions of China, Russia, southeast Asia, and elsewhere.<br />The yowie is a fearsome, hairy creature of Aboriginal mythology. Also called Doolagahl ("great hairy man"), it is venerated as a sacred being from the time of creation which the Aborigines call the Dreamtime. An alleged sighting by a hunting party of settlers in 1795 was followed by increased reports from the mountainous regions of New South Wales [that's a region of Australia, not Britain] in the nineteenth century. For example, in 1875 a coal miner exploring in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Australia reportedly stalked a hairy, apelike animal for a distance before it finally eluded him. Sightings of the yowie mounted as settlers penetrated the country's vast interior, and yowie hunter Rex Gilroy (1995, 197) now notes that his files "bulge with stories from every state."</p><br /><p>The self-described "'father' of yowie research," Gilroy (1995, 202) boasts the acquisition of some 5,000 reports together with a collection of footprint casts, but he complains of "a lifetime of ridicule from both ignorant laymen and scientists alike." When Peter Rodgers and I ventured into the Blue Mountains, we experienced something of the prevalent local skepticism at the information center at Echo Point (in the township of Katoomba). Staffers there were emphatic that the yowie was a mythical creature pursued by a few fringe enthusiasts. (To them yowies exist only as popular toys and chocolate figures marketed by Cadbury.) Nevertheless, to Gilroy "the Blue Mountains continues to be a hotbed of yowie man-beast activities-a vast region of hundreds of square miles still containing inaccessible forest regions seldom if ever visited by Europeans." The fabled creatures are known there, he says, as the "Hairy Giants of Katoomba" and also as the "Killer Man-Apes of the Blue Mountains" (Gilroy 1995, 212).</p><br /><p>In the Katoomba bushland, Peter and I took the celebrated "steepest incline railway in the world" (built as a coal mine transport in 1878) down into Jamison Valley. The miserable weather gave added emphasis to the term rainforest through which we "bushwalked" (hiked) west along a trail. We passed some abandoned coal mines that Peter humorously dubbed "yowie caves," before eventually retracing our route. We saw no "Hairy Giants of Katoomba" but, to be fair, we encountered little wildlife. The ringing notes of the bellbird did herald our visit and announce that we were not alone.</p><br /><p>Resuming our drive we next stopped at Meadlow Bath, an historic resort area overlooking the Megalong Valley-also reputed yowie country (Gilroy 1995, 217-218). From there we surveyed the countryside which was, however, largely shrouded in fog. We continued on to Hartley, then took a narrow, winding road some 44 kilometers to Jenolan Caves. Gilroy (1995, 219) states that the Aborigines believed the caves were anciently used as yowie lairs, and he cites reported sightings and discoveries of footprints in the region.</p><br /><p>We passed through the Grand Arch, a majestic limestone-cavern entranceway into a hidden valley, and surveyed the spectacular grotto called Devil's Coachhouse, continuing our cryptozoological pursuit. We searched the surrounding mountainous terrain (see figure 3) for signs of the elusive yowie, again without success. Here and there the raucous laughter of the kookaburra seemed to mock our attempt. An employee told us he had worked at the site for three years without seeing either a yowie or the inn's resident "ghost," indicating he believed in neither. </p><br /><p>Failing to encounter our quarry, we ended our hunt relatively unscathed-soaked, to be sure, and I with a slightly wrenched knee. But consider what might have been: headlines screaming, "Skeptics mauled by legendary beast!"-a tragic way to succeed, certainly, and with no guarantee, even if we survived, that we would be believed! Even Gilroy conceded (1995, 202) that "nothing short of actual physical proof-such as fossil or recent skeletal remains or a living specimen-will ever convince the scientific community of the existence of the 'hairy man.'" But that is as it should be: In many instances the touted evidence for Bigfoot-type creatures-mostly alleged sightings and occasional footprints-has been shown to be the product of error or outright deception (Nickell 1995, 222-231). Cryptozoologists risk being thought na.ve when they too quickly accept the evidence of "manimal" footprints. "Some of these tracks," insists Gilroy (1995, 224), "have been found in virtually inaccessible forest regions by sheer chance and, in my view, must therefore be accepted as authentic yowie footprints."</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/creationscience/giant_australians.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-77964796917447791962012-03-20T15:49:00.005-07:002012-06-09T10:52:06.320-07:00Do Rabbits Chew A Cud?<p><strong>DR. NORMAN GEISLER RESPONDS</strong></p><blockquote><p>On 8/18/2005 8:10:52 PM, ...ses.edu wrote:</p><p>Thanks for your note. If you read my article (<em>When Critics Ask</em> (page 89-90) under the entry on Leviticus 11:5-6 gives the explanation in more detail), then you know I don't believe the rabbit chews the cud in the modern technical sense. It simply makes a chewing motion that from an observational point of view can be associated with other animals that do chew the cud in the technical sense.</p><br /><p>Norm Geisler</blockquote><br /><p>The standard (and erroneous) claim located <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i4/rabbits.asp?vPrint=1" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><br /><p><em>Why does the Bible refer to rabbits as cud chewers in Leviticus 11:6:<br />"The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you." (New International Version)?</em></p><br /><blockquote><p>"<a href="http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Coprophagia" target="_blank">Rabbits</a> also produce normal droppings, which are not re-eaten."Rabbits, cavies and related species have a digestive system designed for coprophagia. These herbivores do not have the complicated ruminant digestive system, so instead they extract more nutrition from grass by giving their food a second pass through the gut. Soft caecal pellets of partially digested food are excreted and generally consumed immediately. They also produce normal droppings, which are not re-eaten.</p><br /><p>So <u>why</u> are the Creation Scientists trying to compare this process with Rumination?</p><br /><p>Edward T. Babinski: You would think that with the O.T. law that made male warriors have to walk outside the Exodus camp in order to go to the bathroom, that the Hebrews would be particularly appalled by coprophagia. There's even an obscure verse in the O.T. that contains a curse, about holding a "shit stick" up to one's nose. If the Hebrews knew that rabbits were eating something that came out of their rear end, I bet that would have made an impression on them worth mentioning. In effect, I don't think that the inerrantist attempts to try and justify the verse about rabbits being "ruminants" makes any sense. Especially since the Hebrew word means to "bring up," not poop out. More likely they simply noted the APPEARANCE that rabbits have of chewing grass for a long time, and some rabbits may have APPEARED to bring up their food again. One inerrantist mentioned a "throat pouch" in a rabbit in which it might store food and bring it up again, though I haven't found any scientific references to such a pouch, and it's far easier to store food in one's cheeks, rather than in one's throat which can choke a mammal!</p></blockquote><br /><p>Subject: <em>Re: Rabbit Chews the Cud?</em><br />14 Aug 2005<br /><strong>No. A rabbit does <u>not</u> chew a cud.</strong></p><br /><p>SOURCE: Dictionary.com:<br />What is the definition of cud? Tobacco chew qualifies as cud.</p><br /><p><strong>DEF #1</strong><br />cud ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kd)<br />n.<br />Food regurgitated from the first stomach to the mouth of a ruminant <u>and chewed</u> again.<br />Something <u>held in the mouth and chewed</u>, such as a quid of tobacco.<br />[Middle English, from Old English cudu.]</p><br /><p><strong>DEF #2</strong><br />Main Entry: cud<br />Pronunciation: 'k&amp;d, 'kud<br />Function: noun<br />: food brought up into the mouth by a ruminating animal from its first stomach to be <u>chewed</u> again</p><br /><p><strong>DEF #3</strong><br />cud<br />n 1: food of a ruminant regurgitated to be <u>chewed</u> again [syn: rechewed food] 2: a <u>wad of something chewable</u> as tobacco [syn: chew, chaw, quid, plug, wad]<br /><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cud" target="_blank">http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cud</a> </p><br /><p><strong>THE BIBLE IMPLIES CHEWING</strong><br />Source: <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/" target="_blank">http://www.blueletterbible.org/</a><br />"of them that chew" ([05927] `alah) -- "for they chew" ( [05927] `alah )</p><br /><p>The rabbit's "caecal pellet" which is in controversy, is <u>not chewed</u> but rather, it is swallowed whole. To qualify as <u>cud</u>, a wad<u> must be chewed</u>. Chewing is mandatory to define a cud.</p><br /><p><strong>THREE REFERENCES VERIFYING RABBITS DO NOT "CHEW" THIS <em>CUD</em> OR FECES PELLET:</strong></p><br /><p>"<a href="http://www.aquavet.i12.com/Rabbit.htm" target="_blank">Arrival of the caecotrophs</a> at the anus triggers a reflex licking of the anus and ingestion of the caecotrophs, which are swallowed whole and <u>not chewed</u>."</p><br /><p>"<a href="http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/aig_rabbits_cud.htm" target="_blank">Griffiths and Davies</a> assert that the soft pellets are <u>found whole in the stomach</u> and therefore must be <u>swallowed whole</u>."</p><br /><p>A <a href="http://www.gw.org/Rabbit.htm" target="_blank">Christian website</a> containing numerous links on the digestive system of Rabbits.<br />"Rabbits are sometimes called "pseudo-ruminants"... The rhythmic cycle of coprophagy of pure cecal contents practiced by all rabbits allows utilization of microbial protein and fermentation products, as well as recycling of certain minerals. Whereas the feces commonly seen excreted by rabbits are fairly large, dry and ovoid, excreted singly, and consist of fibrous plant material, cecotrophs are about half that size, occur in moist bundles stuck together with mucus, and are very fine textured and odiferous. They are seldom seen, as the rabbit plucks them directly from the anus as they are passed and <u>swallows them whole</u>. Normal rabbits do not allow cecotrophs to drop to the floor or ground, and their presence there indicates a mechanical problem or illness in the rabbit.<br />microvet.arizona.edu/Courses/MIC443/notes/rabbits.htm</p><br /><p>and</p><br /><p>* <strong>Biblical Scholars speak on the question:</strong></p><br /><blockquote><p>Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, page 525:<br />The OT...refers to the hare only to indicate that it is an unclean animal, but its assertion that the hare is a ruminant is contrary to fact. Probably, as in the case of the hyrax...some movements of the mouth and jaws have been erroneously interpreted as cud-chewing.</p><br /><p>International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, page 616:<br />This animal is mentioned only in the lists of unclean animals in Leviticus and Deuteronomy...The hare and the coney are not ruminants, but might be supposed to be from their habit of almost continuously moving their jaws.</p><br /><p>Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, 2000 edition, page 552:<br />Because it "chews the cud" but "does not have divided hoofs," the hare is classified as an unclean animal (Lev. 11:6; Deut. 14:7). Actually, it is not a ruminant but may have appeared as such to ancient obervers because of its constant chewing movements.</blockquote><br /><p>*Credit to John Kesler</p><br /><p>On 8/15/2005 7:18:00 PM, ed babinski wrote:<br /><strong>My two cents to add to the case you have built.</strong><br />Great job continuing the discussion and asking plenty of questions. The question of "certainty" is of course a central one. How do you get anyone to honestly admit their uncertainties? And if they can't be sure about just how "scientifically true" and/or precise/imprecise the origial Hebrew is about "cud chewing," or whether the ancient Hebrews might not have simply noted the APPEARANCE of "cud chewing" in rabbits (and then modern fundamentalists try to stretch the meanings of words to suit a more "scientifically true" explanation), then that opens the question for discussing many other uncertainties as well. Heck, the Hebrew term for RABBIT remains uncertain, since that same word could also be referring to a coney or rock badger, and might even be referring to BOTH a rabbit and a coney, another embarrassing possibility for inerrantists to consider, since neither of those two Middle Eastern animals "chews the cud" and ONLY ONE of those two even "refects." So there's that further uncertainty as well.</p><br /><p>There is far from being any airtight case concerning the Bible's infallibility or inspiration or inerrancy. At most, Biblical "Evangelicals" are ever-attempting to save face, and posit certainties where there are none. Let me quote something concerning such failed Evangelical attempts:</p><br /><p>"As James Barr perceptively concluded in his 1977 book, Fundamentalism, the fundamentalist is no literal reader of the Bible. Rather, he will use every logical or factual means at his disposal to avoid what the Bible literally says in order to harmonize what he thinks to be its meaning with what he thinks to be logical, factual, or historical reality. This he does in obedience to his belief in what he calls biblical inerrancy, or infallibility." [Bruce Vawter in an essay in the book, Is God a Creationist?, ed. Roland Mushat Frye]</p><br /><p>"Once the defender of the inerrancy of the Bible allows himself to meet the critic on critical grounds and not on grounds of a priori principle, he is lost. He finds himself involved in more and more complicated and improbable conjectures in order to save the Bible's inerrancy, and he is vulnerable at so many points, that he is caught, one might say, in a Ptolemaic system of spicycles and yet more epicycles. It can hardly be a coincidence that the fundamentalist tradition has not produced one biblical commentator of sufficient status as to be recognized throughout the scholarly world." [R. P. C. and A. T. Hanson, The Bible Without Illusions]</p><br /><p><strong>THROUGH THE EYES OF ANCIENT OBSERVERS</strong><br />by Edward T. Babinski<br />August 10, 2005</p><br /><p>The ancients probably saw rabbits and cows eating grass and both chewed the grass for a while before swallowing it. They also probably noted the way that cows regurgitate the bolus of food from their stomachs and chewed it some more, and probably assumed that rabbits did the same. They didn't know a lot about biology or how to divide creatures. They had few names for animals in the Bible period and the very word translated as rabbit might mean rock badger as well. What I find least likely is that the same ancient Hebrews who spoke of the serpent as "eating dust" [sic] also knew about "excrement eating," i.e., "refection" in hares (and/or coneys).</p><br /><p>Recall that when the Bible mentions excrement, even cow's excrement (that Yahweh allowed Ezekiel to use instead of human excrement to bake bread over) the mention of the "excrement" coupled with disgust is quite evident. If an ancient Hebrew had seen animals eating their own excrement they would probably have mentioned that fact rather than disquising it as merely "chewing the cud" [sic]. And likewise I doubt that the Hebrews studied hares or rock badgers/coneys so carefully and employed such a wide definition of "chewing the cud/regurgitation in the Hebrew" as to include eating one's own defecation. Odds are, as I said, they probably simply assumed that rabbits, like cows, chewed their grassy meals and "brought them up again" (isn't that the meaning of the Hebrew?) to chew them some more.</p><br /><p>Of course the same folks who want to claim that they have discovered a modern "scientific" way to re-interpret such passages as "rabbits/coneys chew the cud" are also the same ones who spend their time trying to explain away the Bible's "<a href="http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/heart.html" target="_blank">heart/blood/bowel</a>" focus on human life and behavior (without mentioning the most vital organ that holds the most vital part of one's "life" and "direction," i.e., the brain and nervous system), and they are also the same folks who spend their time trying to explain away the Bible's flat earth and geocentric assumptions concerning the cosmos and the firmament and the order of creation:<br /><a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/geocentrism/cosmology.html">Hebrew Cosmology</a><br /><a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/religion/bible_brain.html">Does the Bible Speak of the Brain?</a></p><br /><br /><blockquote><p>On 8/15/2005 5:16:12 PM, thestewarts/canada.com wrote: </p><p>I am confident that Moses knew what he was writing. If he wrote that cows "alah gerah", and that rabbits also "alah gerah", but that swine do not "alah gerah", then I am satified that it is so.</p><p>Am I smarter than the translators? No, of course not. However, I might suggest that perhaps they were not as smart at times as they and others give them credit for. The original text was inspired by God. Thus, I affirm that Moses wrote what is truthful. Translations are not inspired by God. There is potential for translation errors. If Moses says that both the cow and the hare "alah gerah", but the swine does not, then it appears that "chew the cud" was not a completely accurate rendering of what Moses said. Perhaps the translators thought it closely conveyed in the English what the Hebrew text said. I guess not closely enough for you. Can't say that I have lost any sleep over it.</p><p>It's sad that atheists and liberal Bible theologians get so tied up with things like the eating habits of rabbits and cows, that they miss the entire point of the Bible.</p><p>May I correctly assume then, that your beef here (didn't intent to make a pun with the cow, but anyhow) is not with what Moses said, but with what the translators have given us?</p><p>I fully admit that man is fallible. I understand that what we have in our English language is a translation which has been comprised from copies of copies (and translations of copies of copies) of the original texts. I do not affirm that any English translation of the Scriptures is without error. I have not seen one yet. However, the translation errors and transcription errors which are present are minute and insignificant when it comes to basing one's faith upon the Bible.</p><p>Had the translators been more careful and a bit wordier, then maybe they would have supplied an English phrase for "alah gerah" which adequately describes what Moses meant. It appears that maybe they did not. I still don't plan to lose any sleep over it, and could I suggest that you not employ too much of your time pursuing it. In the greater scheme of things, it is a very, very, very small issue.</p><p><a href="http://www.lookinguntojesus.net" target="_blank">William J. Stewart</a><br />Kingston, Ontario</p></blockquote><br /><br />I find it ridiculous that he even believes with such surity "Moses" wrote the whole Pentateuch, and equally ridiculous that this fellow "knows what was meant" by the ancient Hebrew phrase (that clearly mentions bringing something "up"), his own translation of course is inerrant in all cases, and he is certain that the obscure Hebrew term for those animals refers to "rabbits" alone (rather that to coneys, or rather than to both rabbits and coneys, both alternative translations of which would drive a nail through any inerrancy argument) and "refaction" (as though the ancient Hebrews were such careful naturalists, but not so careful as to speak of serpents eating dust or insects having four legs or cattle being born with stripes simply by looking at striped sticks or the heart and bowels directing a man), all in the service of Biblical "inerrancy."</p><br /><blockquote>"Rabbits also produce normal droppings, which are not re-eaten."<br><br />Rabbits, cavies and related species have a digestive system designed for coprophagia. These herbivores <u>do not have the complicated ruminant digestive system</u>, so instead they extract more nutrition from grass by giving their food a second pass through the gut. Soft caecal pellets of partially digested food are excreted and generally consumed immediately. They also produce normal droppings, which are not re-eaten.<br><br />Source: <a href="http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Coprophagia" target="_top">Encyclopedia Coprophagia</a></blockquote><p>Edward T. Babinski: You would think that with the O.T. law that made male warriors have to walk outside the Exodus camp in order to go to the bathroom, that the Hebrews would be particularly appalled by coprophagia. There's even an obscure verse in the O.T. that contains a curse, about holding a "shit stick" up to one's nose. If the Hebrews knew that rabbits were eating something that came out of their rear end, I bet that would have made an impression on them worth mentioning. In effect, I don't think that the inerrantist attempts to try and justify the verse about rabbits being "ruminants" makes any sense. Especially since the Hebrew word means to "bring up," not poop out. More likely they simply noted the APPEARANCE that rabbits have of chewing grass for a long time, and some rabbits may have APPEARED to bring up their food again. One inerrantist mentioned a "throat pouch" in a rabbit in which it might store food and bring it up again, though I haven't found any scientific references to such a pouch, and it's far easier to store food in one's cheeks, rather than in one's throat which can choke a mammal!</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/creationism/rabbit_cud.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-2034645597086610082012-03-20T15:38:00.001-07:002012-06-09T10:50:39.868-07:00Intelligent Design to Natural Selection there are a spectrum of views<p>There are a spectrum of views, or cases, from Intelligent Design (of a "progressive creationist" sort) at one end -- to Natural Selection at the other:</p><br /><p>CASE 1) The Designer fiddles with genes of various creatures every once a while to produce an evoluionary-like progression of forms throughout geologic time.</p><br /><p>Though there appear no necessary reasons why such fiddling must involve short steps rather than long ones, nor why it necessarily had to follow an evolutionary-like pattern of descent with modification over time as it certainly appears to. And questions remain whether individual creatures were fiddled with, or entire populations simultaneously; and also whether the Designer ensures that the creatures with the new genes survive and reproduce (more than those without the new genes), because if the reverse were true, even giving the creatures new genes would not ensure that those genes were passed along.</p><br /><p><em>So the Designer in . .</em><br />CASE 1) apparently has to keep introducing new genetic changes in small increments over vast eons of time, restricts himself to always building on what came before, and also has to watch over individual creatures (and/or a population of them) to make sure they reproduce and pass along those new genetic changes he has made in their DNA.</p><br /><p>CASE 2) The Designer does not fiddle with the genes as in CASE 1) but allows them to mutate naturally over vast eons of time. But the Designer does ensure that specific mutations get passed along by making sure which creatures survive and reproduce, and/or which creatures die. In this case no direct fiddling with genes is necessary, just a fiddling with which creatures survive and breed to pass along particular mutations that the Designer deems appropriate to pass on, and perhaps the Designer also stops some creatures from breeding, the ones with the old mutations. </p><br /><p>CASE 3) The Designer sets up nature "in the beginning" such that mutations continue to occur naturally, and creatures produce lots of offspring, but only a fraction of them survive and breed and thus pass along their genes to the rest of the population. In this case their survival depends on natural circumstances, not a supernatural picking and choosing of which creatures survive and which do not. </p><br /><p>The third option above is modern day "neo-Darwinism," which need not exclude a Designer, just a Designer that allows nature to do her own job -- via a cosmos created "in the beginning." (When I consider the three options above, I must admit, creating something that can itself create other things, is the most impressive of the three options, at least to my mind. I mean, pulling a rabbit out of a hat every now and then may be impressive, but having to keep pulling tiny rabbits out of hats for a billion years seems too "labor intensive" -- and doesn't seem as impressive to me as creating the element known as carbon with the inherent properties such that it can evolve in billions of years into a human being all on its own.) </p><br /><p>Notice that option 1) involves a Designer "fiddling" by introducing specific point mutations in a gene, or instantaneously adding new genes or new chromosomes, such that even if a scientist was there watching it happen (watching those genetic changes underneath a microscope of a cell that was still living and attached to the organism in question) such first-hand observation could tell that scientist nothing about the nature, or causal reason, or the "science" behind what had just happened, except that it was an apparent miracle. </p><br /><p>It would also be a miracle in the case of option 2)in which the Designer miraculously fiddles with the destiny of particular organisms, miraculously choosing which survive and reproduce and which die (in order to ensure that specific mutations "out-compete" other mutations in nature). </p><br /><p>Another point I would make is that there is nothing particularly "scientific" about watching something pop miraculously into existence, or watching one creature rather than another survive in a totally miraculous fashion (so it could reproduce and leave more offspring). </p><br /><p>To use the "rabbit out of the hat" illustration again, if I knew a magician who performed genuine magic (instead of carefully orchestrated "tricks"), and I watched him pull a rabbit totally miraculously out of the air inside his hat, that would teach me nothing, certainly nothing scientific about either hats or rabbits or about any genuine connection between the two. It would only prove to me that I had witnessed a "performance." But as a scientist qua scientist, I would still want to know HOW the trick was done. By what "means" was a rabbit produced from the inside of that hat? Even if the means were miraculous, a scientist would want to find out what the exact ways and means of performing that particular miracle were. In the case of a Designer designing creatures over geologic time a scientist qua scientist would be dying to find out more about how it was done and why in that particular way and what thoughts were going through God's mind at each moment. In other words, a scientist qua scientist would not be satisfied that "it just happened," but remain curious about how it happened, what steps there were leading up and through the process, what connected with what, and why they connected. </p><br /><p>And since we cannot know such things in cases 1) or 2) above, since the ways and means are deemed absolute miracles, I think it quite appropriate of "scientists qua scientists" to continue to investigate the matter from the practical perspective of 3). </p><br /><p>Even as a creationist I used to wonder why God ever bothered to create creatures like chimps and apes, that were more similar to human beings than any other creatures in both looks and behaviors, mockingly so, intriugingly so. And then when I later discovered that there were other primates in the geological past, that even creationists could no longer explain their remains away as "random bones," such as Homo Erectus (not a hoax from China, but found in Africa too!), I began to question my creationist beliefs.<br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/creationism/origins.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-48825236570727293262012-03-20T15:33:00.002-07:002012-06-09T10:49:32.743-07:00Old Earth Creationism and Scientific Journey from Faith<blockquote><em>"Did you pass through an extended 'old-earth' Progressive Creationism stage? If so, what OEC/PC books did you read during that stage, and what were your main problems with them?"</em></blockquote><p>"I went from young-earth to old-earth, and accepting common ancestry." I did change from young to old-earth, and also went from special creation to accepting evidence for common ancestry. </p><br /><p>Glenn Morton was someone I knew who had struggled greatly over the age of the earth question for over a decade, along with ways to still interpret Gen. 1 in a scientific fashion. Glenn mentions in his testimony that his faith in the Bible was saved when he ran across the "Proclamation Day" concordancy explanation in a book by old-earth creationist Alan Hayward, CREATION AND EVOLUTION. Even today Glenn continues to argue for a concordancy between the Bible and history, as in the link he clams exists between the flood story mentioned in Genesis and the flood that geologists say catastrophically filled the Mediterranean basin. In fact his views in FOUNDATION, FALL, AND FLOOD "are much different from anything published by either theistic evolutionists or progressive creationists. The most important thing about my current views is what they offer to the young earth creationist. They can accept the entirety of modern science and still have what they want : an historical Bible." [from Glenn's "bio" sent to me via e-mail 10/1995] </p><br /><p>Glenn Morton claims he is neither a theistic evolutionist, nor a progressive creationist, but remains a believer in a concordancy between the Bible and history.<blockquote><em>"how long was it (i.e., a day? a week? a month? a year? that you went through an 'old-earth stage', i.e. believed in Old-Earth *Creation.*"</em></blockquote><br /><p>Speaking seriously, my "old-earth stage" (to again use your words) wasn't a "stage" at all, neither did it "drag on" (as I already admitted ironically), but it WAS part of my "intellectual journey." </p><br /><p>I first pondered old-earth creationism and its attendant concordist hypotheses when I was a young-earther, at which time they made little sense, since there seemed little necessity for harmonizations between the Bible and modern geology if the earth was young and the items mentioned on each day were specially created. The Bible spoke of six distinct days, and told us in plain words what was made on each one. In my creationist studies I did run across and read old-earth creationist books by Dan Wonderly (his first book, God's Time Records in Ancient Sediments discussed his harmonization of the Bible and science in the rear). Alan Hayward's "Proclamation Day" view is one I learned of later. I already knew about "day-age" and "gap" hypotheses. I also recall having read a book by old-earth creationist Pattle Pun, and I subscribed to the ASA journal (containing articles by Christian old-earth creationists and theistic evolutionists). But my ponderings did not lead me down either the Stephen-sian, nor the Morton-ian roads to concord between Genesis 1 and science. Here's what happened along my intellectual journey, I ran across articles by "creationist-watcher" Robert Schadewald who alluded to "flat earth" verses in the Bible (If you type both Robert Schadewald and flat earth into google you'll find that several of his articles have found their way onto the web). I focused my studies on the questions Schadewald had raised (I mentioned this part of my intellectual journey in LEAVING THE FOLD in the text and in a lengthy footnote). I focused on the meanings, derivations, context and usage of the Hebrew words for "firmament" and "circle " along with verses that implied either a flat-earth and/or a geocentric one. I was surprised to learn from Schadewald about a Bible-believing preacher of the truth of the earth's flatness who lived in Zion, Illinois during the 1920s, who broadcast daily against the evils of "modern astronomy" from one of the largest radio transmitters in America at that time and who also attended the Scopes Trial! Schadewald's articles even altered me to the existence of modern day geocentric creationist Christians and their arguments from the Bible. You can find THEIR articles on the web if you look under Geocentricty and Dr. Bouw (a modern day Christian creationist geocentrist with a Ph.D. in astronomy from Case-Western). </p><br /><p>It dawned on me after quite a lot of research that the Bible's creation account appeared at the very least geocentric, and even closely resembled Babylonian and Egyptian accounts that spoke about the earth being the flat firm foundation of creation, created before the sun, moon and stars, lying beneath a holy heaven that had been raised via a splitting of waters which were held back by a solid dome. More and more of my readings in ancient near eastern creation accounts, word meanings, and iconography led me to that conclusion. (I wrote DOES THE BIBLE TEACH SCIENTIFIC CREATIONISM at that time, and sent it off to three scholars of different faiths who were authorities on Genesis. And they each congratulated me on my research and admitted they had learned something from my work.) At that point it seemed to me that a concordist approach would not impress anyone who was familiar with the Bible's connections to ancient cosmologies/cosmogonies. It appeared that "concordists" were too busy matching what they thought modern cosmology/geology/biology "really taught," with what they thought Genesis (chapter 1) "really taught," all the while ignoring WHAT GENESIS MIGHT HAVE MEANT TO THOSE WHO LIVED NEAR THE TIME OF ITS (ASSUMED MOSAIC) AUTHORSHIP. So concordism came to appear like an ingenious match game to me, stretching a word, a verse, a verb form, and seeking some correspondence with modern science until "matches appeared" seemingly "miraculously" in the eyes of the concordists who found them, yet who took no credit for their ingenuity in coming up with their ever new matches and concordist hypotheses.<br /><p>For an idea of what Genesis 1 and 2 might have meant to ancient Hebrews living in Moses' day, I suggest Professor Conrad Hyers's book, THE MEANING OF CREATION. It's written for the general public and also for evangelical Christians, since Hyers remains a moderate Christian. I had run across Professor Hyers's previous book, THE COMIC VISION AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, along with several of his other works, and wrote him a letter of admiration after which he wrote back and told me he had begun to write a new book called THE MEANING OF CREATION, excerpts of which I wound up featuring in my zine "Theistic Evolutionists' Forum." I even got him a speaking gig during "Preacher's Week" at Furman University where I worked. And his testimony later appeared in LEAVING THE FOLD (because Hyers, oddly enough, had been a fundamentalist and had attended a fundamentalist university in his youth, the same university in the town where I live).<blockquote><em>That is pretty good going getting "a Bachelor of Science in biology" while also studying "all the Christian apologists I could get my hands on ... everything by C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton (about thirty books in all), all of Francis Schaeffer,some Os Guiness, Josh McDowell, and some Reformed Presbyterian writers too". Either Ed is a genius or "a B.S. in biology" was an easy course in those days. I am studying for "a B.S. in biology" full time now, and I barely have time to read my textbooks and set readings!</em></blockquote><br /><p>ED: You're just jealous. I never had trouble in school or college, studied little, but almost always made the Dean's list. I was young, sober, curious. I was also single, living at home, commuting to college. No wife, no kids, and fewer chores and interruptions than most, and as I said a driven curiosity. I began reading Lewis and Schaeffer's works while a sophomore in high school since they were for sale off a bookrack in the first church I began attending, where I was rebaptized, Jacksonville Chapel in Pequannock, New Jersey. Later I had access to university libraries including the one at Fairleigh Dickinson and before that the Princeton Theological Seminary library that I visited while commuting back and forth to school in Trenton. Though I also bought a lot of books through the mail and in Christian bookstores. In pre-Zondervan days Christian bookstores were more interesting, even more appealing. I got to know the owners, talked and prayed with some of them. Speaking of the Princeton Theological Seminary Library, I had an evangelical friend who went to seminary there and introduced me to the campus including the library where he told me I could use it (he was at first just as on fire for the Lord as I was, we had prayed together when we were both freshmen at our different colleges, but after a few years at Princeton he started to learn things about the Bible and about the variety within Christianity and he became more ecumenical, in fact I could sense that something was different about him, his faith was no longer exactly like mine, by that I mean he didn't take as great delight in the same Bible phrases I quoted to him, nor take as much delight in my stories about sharing Jesus to this or that perons and "saving souls" like I still did at college. Now that I think back on it, I would undergo a similar change years later.) I have always been a reader and I loved the way I could find whatever books I was seeking, though at that time they were almost always young-earth books. I've been haunting libraries and bookstores since I was in high school. Still do, and have gone to Bob Jones to read creationist mags every so often. And work in a university library now. About the quantity of books I read between my sophomore year in high school and my senior year in college, I can't recall all their names, mostly books I picked up at the Mustard Seed bookstore in Ramsey, N.J. a big Christian bookstore with a first floor and basement filled with evangelical books for sale, and also a Christian rock music listening room featuring records by Larry Norman, Phil Keaggy, Randy Stonehill, Love Song, Honeytree, Michael Omartian. I think Christian music sounded better back then 1974-79 than it does today. I also spent loads of time at the Lamplighter Christian Bookstore in Princeton, a shop with a Narnian theme and lots of books by "Word" publishing. They had a reading room where we prayed. Let's see, the authors and titles I recall foremost off the top of my head included, Os Guiness -- at that time he had only published a few Intervarsity tracts and his first book, THE DUST OF DEATH. I read Lewis's PILGRIM'S REGRESS, PROBLEM OF PAIN, MIRACLES, GOD IN THE DOCK, REFLECTIONS, THE FOUR LOVES, SURPRISED BY JOY, along with his sci-fi trilogy and the CHRONICLES. and a few others I can't recall, essay collections I believe. I read Francis Shaeffer's THE GOD WHO IS THERE, ESCAPE FROM REASON, HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT, and some others I can't recall. I read Chesterton's ORTHODOXY, THE EVERLASTING MAN, ST. THOMAS, ST. FRANCIS and many of his novels, notably THE BALL AND THE CROSS (a thinly veiled semi-autobioraphical novel about his intellectual bouts with his good friend and metaphysical sparring partner, George Bernard Shaw), and many of G.K.'s essays, including his debate with Robert Blatchford on religion in the British press. In fact I read the author Martin Gardner's book, THE WHYS OF A PHILOSPHICAL SCRIVENER, and wrote him especially since he had a B.S. like me, but became an author (puzzle columnist for Sci Amer. and also columnist for the Skeptical Inquirer) and found out he was also a G.K. fan and lived in a nearby town and he loaned me two rare books by Chesterton, one was G.K.'s play, MAGIC and the other was MANALIVE. Josh McDowell had only published the first edition of ETDAV. (See my review of chapter 12 of that book on the Secular Web.) And the Reformed Presbyterian writers included Cornelius Van Till (two prolegomenas by him and one tract by him, "Why I Believe in God"), Rushdooney (THE ONE AND THE MANY, THE MYTHOLOGY OF SCIENCE), and a Gordon Clarke intro to philosophy, and oh yes, another book published by that same Reformed Publishing House that argued for a literal interpretation of Genesis. I read some of the Reformed Presbyterian writers AFTER my four years of college, during which time I was working at infrequent part time jobs but mostly staying home, watching Pat Robertson (to whom I donated a weekly amount of money, becoming a 700 Club member) and read and went to some job interviews. That was for a year or more, then the family moved down south (from New Jersey) and I had more time on my hands settling into a new state and a new town. In fact, I visited a friend at Nebraska State for over a month and used their library there to do research into the historical background of the Bible's creation verses.<blockquote><em>You do not mention any conflict he had with your "young-earther" beliefs while getting his "B.S. in biology". Maybe you will elaborate on that?</em></blockquote><br /><p>ED: You obviously want to hear the whole unedited version of my story. I evangelized all of my college teachers. I gave away copies of Weston-Smith's MAN'S ORIGIN AND MAN'S DESTINY, and Gish's THE FOSSILS SAY NO! I introduced a film on creationism (a poor film, I'm sorry to say, that was also poorly attended) that was shown on my college campus. I obtained copies of slides of Gish's presentations from ICR and used them to make a presentation of my own to Ph.D. chemists at a major pharmaceutical company, Hoffmann-La Roche, that I worked for during the summers between semesters. I handed out Gish's tracts in the parking lot at my school. I did two colloquium presentations in which I lectured fellow science students on young-earth ideas indirectly -- what I did was review the evidence for evolution, like human evolution, and stressed problems in interpretation, and would suggest in the end that maybe there is no fossil evidence at all for human evolution. My Sociology professor allowed me to speak to the whole class telling them about my belief in a super-personal reality (taken from Lewis). I held a free Christian book and tract table three times on campus at Fairleigh Dickenson in which I gave away many evangelical books and tracts. My professor of comparative anatomy and physiology, and comparative embryology, Emile Zebenyi, taught his courses from the perspective of evolution, always mentioning the way this or that cell layer in the embryo or organ in one kind of creature got used in a slightly different but similar way in the next kind of creature. But I questioned him. He was a kind and knowledgeable person, but unable to sway me from young-earth creationism. He didn't try to sway me, he just wanted me to learn the material and get through his intensive courses. My Sociology professor was also a kind person, and we studied all sorts of ideas and cultures in his course. He got leukemia a year later and I sang him a Christian song at his bedside, and visited him once more before he died. He was moved by my visits but didn't make a profession of faith. Still, we got along well and were close, as close as I also was with my philosophy professor who wrote me into one of his essay questions, involving a crowded boat that would sink with all aboard unless somebody was chosen to leave it and drown. My character, whom he named, "Ed," was an "evangelical Christian. When faced with the "boat dilemma" I told him and the class that it wasn't a dilemma at all, since I would simply volunteer to leave the boat, knowing that death held no fear for me, and so that the others might be spared longer lives in which to find Christ. I even spoke to my Calculus teacher about becoming a Christian. His response was, "You pays your money you takes your choice." But of course the people I was closest too were fellow Christians, whom I saw daily and met weekly, and stayed over each other's houses, and prayed, and evangelized other people on campus together. It wasn't a large college that I spent my first two years at, I transferred after that to a college in Rutherford New Jersey, Fairleigh Dickenson, where I met charismatics and sang and prayed with them, along with meeting priests who were leaders in the burgeoning nationwide Catholic Charismatic movement of the late 1970s. By the way, during my first two years of college I was elected president of my campus group, the most evangelical on campus. It was called, Chi Alpha, "Christ's Ambassadors."</p><blockquote><em>Have you ever work as a biologist? I notice that you are a "Serials Acquisitions Assistant" in the library of Furman University, South Carolina</em></blockquote><br /><p>I never claimed I worked as a biologist. I worked summers as a lab assistant at a newly built advanced molecular biology lab at Hoffman-La Roche and was offered a full time job there during my third semester in biology at Fairleigh Dickinson, but I declined (dohh) to finish my biology degree in a more timely fashion. I've followed the evolution of the creation debate since the mid 1970s in ICR Impact articles, CRSQ, ASA articles. When Creation/Evolution newsletter and Creation/Evoultion Journal appeared (replies to creationist arguments) I began reading that too, as well as its later incarnation, NSCE Reports. And just as you were a member of the Calvin Reflector, I later became a member of a list of Christian theistic evolutionists and atheistic evolutionists who all specialized in studying and discussing creationist arguments, and later, I.D. arguments. I have exchanged letters and emails with participants of this debate over the years, from Henry Morris and Duane Gish (I knew one of his secretaries fairly well, we would even exchange Christmas cards since I had her copying articles from Gish's files for me and sending them to me), along with Mark Hartwig (one of the original editors of Origins Research -- founded with seed money from ICR -- which later became Origins and Design), Paul Nelson (of Origins and Design), Kurt Wise, Glenn Morton, Robert Schadewald, Conrad Hyers. A few other writers, all Christian, whom I have exchanged personal correspondence with over the years include Gary Habermas, Paul Seeley, Dan Wonderly, Alan Hawyard, and Robert Farrar Capon. Phil Johnson even sent me one or two brief responses over the years.</p><br /><p>In my job I see the latest science magazines as they arrive. And I can order as many interlibrary loans as I want. To someone like me it's a genuine gas. And two years ago I moved across the street from the biggest satellite branch of the county's main library, and last week I borrowed ten of the latest books on evolution and some on religion. I also have professor friends in the science departments on the campus where I work. The biology prof is someone I know and I have seen him debate creationists in an event that was held here on campus about five years ago. An I.D.er also came to speak here on campus and I went to see that, and stood up and asked questions afterwards. Though he wasn't a big name I.D.er, he was I think local. His name escapes me though he had a book table and was selling books by leading I.D.ers. Some of the Christian groups on campus brought him to campus to speak. I've also debated Kent Hovind, the young-earth creation evangelist, in a church in Georgia. That was about five years ago. I still have loads of slides that I made to facilitate my points during the debate. (I've come quite a ways from using Gish's slides to present young-earth creationism to Hoffman-La Roche Ph.D. chemists.)</p><blockquote><em>Johnson says on one of his tapes regarding his conversion from atheism/ agnosticism to Christianity that it is the decision to seriously consider a view that is the real turning point. While the person may not realise it, embracing that view is after that just a matter of time.</em></blockquote><br /><p>Ironic isn't it that according to Johnson himself, if you begin taking me and my testimony and arguments "seriously" you too may be at a "turning point," and "it's just a matter of time." But don't worry too much about it, because we both have "seriously considered" many views in our lifetimes, but neither of us has embraced them all did we? By the way, both G.K. Chesteron and Robert Ingersoll agreed that seriousness was not necessarily always a virtue. Chesteron used to say that Satan fell by force of gravity, he took himself too gravely. And he added that a good religion was one that could laugh at itself. Ingersoll used to say that preachers of all religions/philosophies want you to remain serious because that's the first step to accepting wild stories and rumors as fact. There's one fellow on the web however, who is a religious icon of sorts who does not take himself or his beliefs seriously, his name is Swami Beyondananda. Check him out via google, he's pretty funny. By the way, simply by putting more than one word, like a name, in quotation marks in the google search box, will get you to all matches containing that exact name. Mine of course is "Edward T. Babinski." But you seem to have found out all about me with ease. So I guess you don't need further hints.</p><blockquote><em>So your decision to begin and then continue "corresponding with two former evangelical friends, both of whom had left the fold in college" tells me that you had (whether you realised it or not) already made up your mind against Christianity and was just, as you put it, "think[ing] my way out".</em></blockquote><br /><p>What have you demonstrated? Only that you "(whether you realize it or not) have already made up your mind" concerning my intellectual journey. (That's O.K. though because I've made up mind about yours too. * smile *) So let's skip the cheap psycholoanalyzing. My friends might still have some of the hundred or so lengthy letters I sent them during the five years we corresponded. I know what I wrote, and I was not trying to convince myself to leave the fold. It was agony for me to see them risking hell, to doubt the holy word of God. I cited Lewis, Chesterton, McDowell, and others, using arguments very similar to those in a book I ran across recently, LETTERS TO A SKEPTIC or a similar title that I saw at Barnes and Noble. I found the book interesting because that's exactly what I sounded like when I wrote my friends years ago. My letters were like that author's, utilizing the "Liar, Lunatic or Lord," argument and other concerning the Bible's trustworthiness, the meaning of dogmas, Christian history, psychology, etc. I also loved studying my faith and knowing why I believed and sharing it with my friends, I daresay I believed more fully in my faith after the first few years of my letter debates/conversations with them, I even felt inspired writing those letters, in a Lewisian way, in a Sheldon Vaunaken-ian way (Sheldon was a student of Lewis who wrote an inspiring autobiography about his own journey toward Christianity). What changed me in the end was stepping off the path of "acceptable Christian reading" and reading far more widely (widening my roots which were already deep into Christian soil, but I began to spread out side roots into other soils by reading "the opposition?" I'm trying to use your analogy) and thinking about my beliefs in ways I formerly had not. Hence, I "thought" my way out rather than those who complain that the church or the pastor wronged them or showed too much hypocrisy. I liked Christian worship and Christian friends. I still have Christian friends, like Artie Silver, from that time period. The worst thing I could say about churchgoing in the end was that it was getting boring, repetitive, and I didn't think that rhetoric and raising one's voice was superior to quiet study and thinking. My thinking during the ending years of my letter debates with these highly intelligent friends of mine was accompanied by anguish, the pain of change. I think that people basically remain the same until the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of changing. And it grew more painful for me to assume I knew all the answers after a while, than to admit I no longer was as sure of them as I once was. If I didn't have long time correspondents, perhaps I might not have ever changed. It's possible that simply their ability to read and listen to me and treat me kindly had something to do with my dawning realization that they were like me in more ways than either of us were different. In the end I suppose that the division between the "damned and the saved" grew less clear in my mind, my appreciation of persons as individuals was growing instead of viewing each individual as a theological abstraction that one could place in neat tidy categories based on their answer to the question, "Do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?"</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/creationism/old_earth.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-7081318466933376952012-03-20T15:08:00.001-07:002012-06-09T10:42:27.347-07:00Science and Scripture<blockquote><em>Although Ramm presents it as a "prediction" it is not much of one since he says there were already were at least 55 fossil hominids in his day:<br />"It has been incorrectly asserted that the fossil remains of man are few and fragmentary. It is argued that from a small basketful of enigmatical bones an entire evolutionary history of humanity is constructed. This might have been the case a half-century ago but it is no longer a valid objection. There are fifteen skulls or fragments of Sinanthropus Pekinensis, and of other prehistoric men there are as many as forty skeletons. For one Piltdown skull which must be given up there are one or two dozen to take its place. Dr. Broom has scurried around South Africa with great zeal, turning up numerous skulls. If a hundred Dr. Brooms were to work as diligently in all the world we might well fill a museum up with prehistoric human fossils. Evangelicals must seriously reckon with this as a real possibility and be prepared for it. The anthropologist cannot be discounted any longer on the ground that all he has to work with is a basketful of controversial bones." (Ramm B.L., "The Christian View of Science and Scripture," [1955], Paternoster: Exeter, Devon UK, 1967, reprint, p.216)</em></blockquote><br /><p>Gish of course was not impressed by Ramm's list at the time Ramm made it above, and hence Gish scorned both Peking Man and Piltdown. And Australian creationist QUOTE BOOK boasted until recently that "there were barely enough remains of early man to fill a coffin." It wasn't until 1994 that I read about young-earthers AGREEING WITH RAMM and saying things like:</p><br /><p>"I was surprised to find that instead of enough fossils barely to fit into a coffin, as one evolutionist once stated [in 1982], there were over 4,000 hominid fossils as of 1976. Over 200 specimens have been classified as Neandertal and about one hundred as Homo erectus. More of these fossils have been found since 1976." MICHAEL J. OARD, in his review of the book, Bones of Contention<br />-- A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 30, March 1994, p. 222</p><br /><p>"The current figures [circa 1994] are even more impressive: over 220 Homo erectus fossil individuals discovered to date, possibly as many as 80 archaic Homo sapiens fossil individuals discovered to date, and well over 300 Neandertal fossil individuals discovered to date."<br />MARVIN L. LUBENOW, author of Bones of Contention<br />-- A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, in a letter to the editor of the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 31, Sept. 1994, p. 70</p><br /><blockquote><em>But Ramm said a lot more about it than that. He had a whole chapter on Anthropology and showed how the Bible and science could be interpreted harmoniously with the right *attitude* on the part of both scientists and Christians:<br />"B. Certain features which we tend to overlook.<br />1. Both geology and Scripture teach that man is the latest major form to appear on the earth.</em></blockquote><br /><p>I fully agree, in terms of sheer intellect man is the latest major form to appear on earth. But what about in terms other than sheer intellect? Depends on how you define "forms" and "major" I suppose. Genomically speaking, the change from the common ancestor of chimp and man --&lt; to man's genome, did not involve a genomic change of "major form." I bet there are plenty of creatures who have<br />undergone greater changes in their genomes over the last five million years, notably creatures with quicker reproductive cycles than man, or creatures living in regions where mutations appear more often.</p><br /><p>As for man appearing "last or latest" that remains a point of BIBLICAL contention between old-earth creationist and theistic evolutionist Christians at ASA, because what "Scripture teaches" about the timing of man's creation is not without contention when you compare Gen. 1 and 2. Was man created first or last? There's at least one article and discussion of that topic, which is still debated at the ASA site. </p><br /><p>As for the account of Genesis 1, taken by itself instead of compared with Genesis 2, yes, Gen. 1 says man was created last, and it also says that God rested after that. Exodus added that God "rested and was refreshed" after his six days of creation, which some translators say literally means, "rested and caught his breath." </p><br /><blockquote><em>2. Anthropology and Scripture agree that man is the highest form of life. In Biblical language, man is in the likeness and image of God.<br />Scientifically considered, man has<br />(i) the most generalized body of any organism<br />(ii) the largest brain in ratio to the weight of the body and diameter of the spinal cord<br />(iii) the most complex brain and,<br />(iv) is the most intelligent of all life.</em></blockquote><br /><p>Yes, we have big brains and spinal cords, on the other hand as SOON as any creature evolves that can write books, including both holy books and science books, it will recognize itself as the highest creature around, after all, it holds the pen. As far as evolving "last," evolution doesn't say man came "last." It just says that man arrived. Who knows WHAT is going to evolve "last" (especially if you consider that the world might go on for billions of years, and that there might also be life on other worlds).</p><br /><blockquote><em>3. Anthropology and the Bible both assert that man has much in common with the animals. The Bible asserts that the animals were made from the earth (" let the earth bring forth"), and that man was made from the dust of the earth. The strong emphasis in modern science on the continuity of man's body with the animal world is but the realization of what is in the Biblical account already. ...</em></blockquote><br /><p>Compare the proportion of different atoms and molecules in your average patch of earth with the proportion found in the human body, the latter of which is over 60% water. It would be nearer to scientific accuracy if the Bible said man was created from water than from earth. In fact man's blood contains similar (not exact) minerals to sea water. Also earth and clay contain loads of silicon, while man's body is carbon based. And of course, if you want to stress "continuity" as Ramm does above, why not point out the continuity in evolution rather than the continuity of both being created "from earth," i.e., the fairly small genomic differences between man and chimp, which are as close as sibling species of near identical fruit flies? But the Biblical author knows nothing of this, to the ancients there were basic "elements" like earth, water, fire, air. So he had to choose among those to create man and beasts from. And he chose "earth."</p><br /><p>I happen to think man and the beasts were not separately and specially "created from the earth," but from each other. And indeed if you went back far enough we even shared fish-like ancestors, which the Bible claims were created on totally separate days from the beasts of the field. </p><br /><blockquote><em>Mivart asks us to contemplate what we would do, as it were, if we were God and were going to create man. He says we would be guided by these considerations: (i) to live on his earth man must resemble animals in that he must eat, breathe, etc.;</em></blockquote><br /><p>Yes, we must eat, so what about the bacteria that infect the food we eat? Microgram for microgram, the poisons produced by some bacteria in our food are more potent than all other known poisons on earth. It is estimated that one tenth of an ounce of the toxin produced by bacteria causing botulism would be more than enough to kill everyone in the city of New York; and a 12-ounce glassful would be enough to kill all 5.9 billion human beings on the face of the Earth. (The same happens to be true of the toxin that causes tetanus.)</p><br /><blockquote><em>(ii) being an intelligent creature he must have a large nervous system;<br />(iii) as such, no invertebrate nor reptile nor fish nor bird is so built as to be able to support such a huge nervous system;</em></blockquote><br /><p>Any creature with any system whatsoever is "built to support it" to one degree or another. Though the fact that the human pelvis is has narrowed with upright posture and the human infant's skull is larger in man than other primates does make birthing difficult for the human species:</p><br /><p>Only a Designer would have had the infinite wisdom and compassion to create human beings as two-legged upright creatures based on the same skeletal design for four-legged creatures. This has led to innumerable problems for men and women. Aside from lower back pain, foot, ankle, and knee problems, "to effect upright posture based on the skeletal system of four-legged animals the human female's sacrum had to be pushed down somewhat, so that its lower end is now below both the hip socket and the upper level of the pelvic articulation...<br />This has resulted in an encroachment on the female pelvic cavity, thereby narrowing the birth canal and rendering it too small for comfortable birthing. The result is that human childbirth is generally painful and often dangerous. The process of giving birth exposes both the mother and her infant to sizable risks of accidents and infections. For a woman with a small pelvis the rigors of childbirth can be excruciating, even fatal. No other animal has this problem." [Wilton Krogman, "The Scars of Human Evolution," Scientific American, 1951 - as cited in Timothy Anders' The Evolution of Evil] </p><br /><p>Only in recent times has the mortality of women and children during childbirth been greatly reduced due to advances in obstetrical medicine. Even today, however, a woman's chances of dying from complications during childbirth remain greater than dying from complications due to having an abortion during her first trimester of pregnancy. If only the Designer had employed a uniquely improved<br />design instead of just jury-rigging the old four-legged skeletal system to make us walk erect! </p><br /><p>Speaking of another flaw (albeit a minor one compared to the above), designed into the upright skeletal system of human beings are "two major blood vessels, going to the legs, that must cross a sharp promontory bone at the junction of two lower vertebrae in the spine. The organs in the pelvis exert great pressure on those two blood vessels. During pregnancy, this pressure may build up to such an extent that the vein is nearly pressed shut, making for very poor blood drainage of the left leg. This is the so-called `milk leg' of pregnancy. Four-legged animals experience no such problem." [Wilton Krogman, "The Scars of Human Evolution," Scientific American, 1951 - as cited in Timothy Anders' The Evolution of Evil]</p><br /><p>But overall, any LIVING creature with any system whatsoever is supported by that system and vice versa, or the creature DIES, a fact that both creationists and I.D.ers and Darwinian's agree upon. Now please explain creatures that are awkwardly built or that exhibit atavisms like legs on modern day whale fetuses and whales. Or like toes on pigs that don't touch the ground as they walk? Or like giraffe babies falling several feet and landing on their heads at birth? I'm sure the explanation is that "they had to be created that way, because of natural limitations within creation itself." Well, Darwinism also agrees there are natural limitations, and that creatures evolving in certain directions are impeded to various degrees by the directions they have evolved in. So Mirvat's arguments seem to prove very little when you think about them. Similar arguments work for all sides. (That's why I don't like to categorize myself as either an I.D.er nor a Darwinian, I still have questions. I just happen to be asking them of I.D.er's more often these days. My own personal hopes as I have said are of a higher power and an afterlife, based perhaps on the anthropic principle and perhaps also on some arguments in Denton's second book.) </p><br /><blockquote><em>(iv) whales, porpoises, and seals are ruled out as they lack large enough nervous systems, and for the same reason we must (v) rule out the hoofed animals;<br />(vi) this restricts us to the carnivores, and among the carnivores those who have a body most closely suited to what man should possess are the simians. The many traits that man has in common with animal life, and his marked similarities to the simians, should come then, upon mature reflection, as no great surprise.</em></blockquote><br /><p>And equally no great surprise either to creationists nor to evolutionists, which again proves nothing.</p><br /><blockquote><em>4. Geological and anthropological evidence is not the only source of our information about man's origin. Man's nature investigated through psychology and reflected upon in theology and philosophy, is also evidence as to his divine origin. It is not possible to account for man's great intelligence, his conscience, his spiritual experiences, his artistic creations, on purely naturalistic premises.</em></blockquote><br /><p>Who really KNOWS how to account for everything? Naturalists can't account for everything and admit it, but theists account for reason by positing Divine Reason, and they account from design by positing a Divine Designer, and they account for artistic creations by positing a Divine Artist, and they account for intelligence by positing Divine Intelligence. Sounds like the theists are accounting for everything simply by using the same word and capitalizing it. Kind of like circular reasoning. So neither naturalist nor theist has a STEP BY STEP account of everything. Though naturalists, especially methodologically speaking seem more inclined to inquire into questions in a step by step fashion rather than positing the same thing and capitalizing it.</p><br /><blockquote><em>There is a divine element detectable in human nature now which indicates a divine origin of man in the past. Only the Biblical account which asserts the double origin of man (from dust, from God) is true to the total man. Any present conflict between Genesis and anthropology does not obviate the fact of a present and detectable divine element in human nature, and therefore the necessity of a divine origin of the divine element in that human nature.</em></blockquote><br /><p>ED: Every major religion, even ones without Genesis-like creation accounts, seems to agree that there is something divine in man, something that is eternal.</p><br /><blockquote><em><p>5. Perhaps our problem is interpretative. Maybe our trouble is that we are trying to apply modern methods of historiography to a method of divine revelation which will not yield to such a treatment.... Until we get further light from science or<br />archaeology we must suspend judgment as to any final theory of the harmonization of Genesis and anthropology ...</p><br />(Ramm B.L., "The Christian View of Science and Scripture," [1955], Paternoster: Exeter, Devon UK, 1967, reprint, pp.229-230)</em></blockquote><br /><p>I like that! Suspending judgment. Seems very reasonable to me. Ramm just cited the broadest outlines of a few basic "harmonies" between science and scripture, though I even question some of his points. He is also brave enough to mention "present conflicts between Genesis and anthropology" in point four. Yes, I too see the conflicts, and the non-special nature of the Genesis account, "historiographically" speaking.</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/creationism/harmonization.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-17398455820207926162012-03-20T15:01:00.001-07:002012-06-09T10:41:20.728-07:00Giant Animals in past and Giant Human Being over ten feet tall<blockquote><br />John Adolfi writes:<br /><em>Hi Ed,<br />Thank you for considering us for your site. The Giants we are interested in are any and all. The fact that they were more than week legged tall fellas throughout the ages interests me. Giants with the strength of 5 men. And I beleive Genesis promotes the idea that we were originally created as giants, like the animals were and through time we shrunk, like the animals.</em></blockquote><br /><p>ED: What do you mean "like the animals were, and through time we shrunk, like the animals?" It's true that some parts of the geological record contain fossils of enormously tall cattails and dragonflies with huge wingspans, but there aren't any dinosaurs or mammals buried alongside those species, and other smaller species of plants and insects also existed alongside those giant ones.</p><br /><p>And when you dig up dinosaurs, you find some species of dinosaurs were merely the size of chickens. And you also dig up right alongside those huge dinosaurs almost mouse-sized mammal-like reptiles that lived right beside them. </p><br /><p>Also, the biggest whales are alive today, for instance, the Blue Whale, hailed as the biggest animal that ever lived, isn't found in the older fossil record. The older fossil record does contain cetaceans of considerably smaller sizes, thinner cetaceans with tiny rear legs and long animal-like snouts. Likewise, Sequoias are the tallest plants ever, the tallest growing organisms ever, the most massive, and they only appeared in recent time. </p><br /><p>If anything, the fossil record shows that the first amphibians that came on land were smaller than the ones that followed, and the earlier known species of dinosaurs were smaller than the ones that followed, and the earliest mammals were relatively small too, much smaller than the gigantic ones that followed. If anything, if you examine the relative order of the fossil deposits and begin with the ones on the bottom and work your way toward the top, the reptiles started out smaller and grew bigger then the biggest ones became extinct, and mammals started out small too and grew bigger but the biggest ones became extinct.</p><br /><p>Also, on human giants "over ten feet tall," not a bone exists as evidence. I've contacted both Hovind and the creationist in Texas who made his own giant human bone out of plaster, a mere "model" as it says at his website, of what a giant human femur might look like. </p><br /><p>Here's the letter I sent him, that even includes the view of the Southern Baptist Convention on the matter of Goliath's height.</p><br /><p>Dear Mt. Blanco Museum and Mr. Taylor,</p><br /><p>Greetings, </p><br /><p>I saw your <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/81/7148.html" target="_blank">website</a> mentioned at EvC Forum in the section of exchanges regarding "Giants," and I visited the Mt. Blanco [creationist] Museum website where I saw a photo of a "giant human femur." But the Mt. Blanco webpage admits that the "femur" pictured on their site is a sculpture that Mr. Taylor molded in order to illustrate a story. The story came from a letter published in an unnamed publication by an unnamed person, neither does the story mention "femurs." The letter states:<br />"In south-east Turkey in the Euphrates Valley and in Homs and at Uran-Zohra, tombs of about four meters long once existed, but now roads and other construction work has destroyed the spots. At two places, when unearthed because of construction work, the leg bones were measured about 120 cms [47" long]. It sounds unbelievable. I have lived with my family at Ain-Tell for more than 14 years at the very spot where King Nebuchadnezzar had his headquarters after the battle of Charcamish, where I dug the graves of kings' officers and found their skeletons like sponge, and when you touch them they become like white ash, with spears and silex and obsidian tools and ammunition laying by."</p><br /><p>The author of the letter did not say "femur," but, "leg bones." Perhaps in the great state of Texas in the USA, where the Mr. Blanco [creationist] Museum resides, they refer to the "fermur" colloquially as the "leg bone" (singular), but the Middle Easterner who wrote the above letter referred to "leg bones" [plural] when he stated, "at two places... the leg bones [plural] were measured about 47" long." So the word "femur" was not mentioned at all, and leaving aside Texas colloquialisms, the "leg bones" in this case probably refers to all the bones of the leg, the total "leg" length. I wear 34-36" long pants, so my "leg bones" measure about 36." The "leg bones" mentioned above were maybe 11" inches longer than mine. Such a skeleton might be a few feet taller than me, as I'm only 6'3" tall, but not "14-16 feet tall" as the Mt. Blanco Museum calculates, based on their assumption that "the leg bones" must mean "femurs" (plural). </p><br /><p>All in all, a human whose legs were 11" longer than mine is large, but not beyond the known range of human variation. See for instance: E. Cobham Brewer 1810-1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898 , "Giants of Real Life." Mr. Brewer collected a long list of "human giant" stories from throughout history and their alleged heights, and his conclusion, as stated at one point in his list, was that "...no recorded height of any human giant known has reached 10 feet... The nearest approach to it was Gabara, the Arabian giant (9 feet 9 inches) mentioned by Pliny, and Middleton of Lancashire (9 feet 3 inches) mentioned by Dr. Plott."</p><br /><p>By the way, the Middle East does contain some "long narrow graves" as even Mark Twain pointed out in his INNOCENTS ABROAD, and one such grave that Twain visited was "210 ft. long but only four feet high." (Twain remarked that the person buried in that tomb must have been shaped as tall and thin as a lightning rod.) </p><br /><p>Also, the largest Protestant denomination in America, The Southern Baptist Convention (that promote young-earth creationism) has argued for toning down the heights of "human giants" mentioned in the Bible. See the following paragraphs from "Giants in the Land" by Harold Mosley, an article that appeared in THE BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, 30:2 Winter 2003-04, a Sunday School publication put out by the Southern Baptist Convention:</p><br /><p><strong>GIANTS IN THE LAND</strong> [with additional comments by me, E.T.B.]<br />The Bible mentioned the "nephilim" and "rephaim" in Genesis and Exodus. It was the King James translators who rendered those words "giants" while other translators simply transliterate the Hebrew word into English as "Nephilim." Scholars argue over the exact meaning of the word. The context of Genesis 6 is not precise enough to determine anything about the Nephilim except that they appear as unusual individuals... Concerning Numbers 13:33, the comparison of the spies being like grasshoppers next to the Nephilim certainly must have been an exaggeration. Otherwise, if the comparison were taken literally, the Nephilim would be more than one hundred feet tall. [Oddly enough a few Christians in the past DID take such a comparison literally and argued that the Nephilim were over a hundred feet tall. I mentioned such extravagant beliefs in my article on the web. The Book of Enoch, Cotton Matter and some unnamed Frenchman suggested fantastically large "giants in the earth." -- E.T.B.]... </p><br /><p>If the Anakim were tall compared to the Hebrews, how tall were the Hebrews? Based on ancient Hebrew skeletons excavated at archeological digs, the average male's height ranged from 5'5" to 5'7". Since the ancient Hebrews generally saw themselves as smaller than other peoples, the biblical writers often noted unusual height. (For instance Isaiah 18:2,7 described the Ethiopians as a people "tall and smooth." Also, the fact that Saul stood taller than other Israelites was noted in 1 Sam. 10:23) ... King Og of Moab, Deut. 3:11 had a bed measuring 9 cubits long and 4 cubits wide (13 ft by 6 ft) [but that does not mean King Og was the same size as his bed. -- E.T.B.]... The record of the height of Goliath, as mentioned in 1 Sam. 17:4 is not consistent among all the ancient versions of 1 Samuel. The Hebrew records for Goliath say he was 6 cubits and a span (a cubit was roughly 18 inches, a span about 9 inches), so Goliath would be about 9'9" tall. Other ancient versions like the Septuagint lists Goliath at 4 cubits and a span, which would make Goliath closer to 6'9" in height. Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews says Goliath was about 6'8", which would still be considered a giant among the Hebrew people. However, the description of the weight of Goliath's armor suggests a much larger man than even a 7 foot tall individual to carry such weight. His bronze coat weighted "5,000 shekels," an astounding 125 pounds. [Of course, speaking of the number "5,000" as in the afore mentioned weight of "5,000" shekels, it must be kept in mind that the Hebrew authors were prone to rounding off and probably exaggerating them, which was common in the ancient world regarding the numbers of people and booty captured during wars. It can also be seen the case of enemies killed by Hebrews in battle as mentioned in the book of Judges, featuring reports of "500" or "600" or even "1000" enemies all killed by one Hebrew in a single fight, the Hebrew only using either an ox goad, a spear, or even the jawbone of an ass. Elsewhere in the Bible, King David leaves his son a huge rounded off number of pounds of gold and silver in order to build a temple, but the number given in the Bible is so huge it's nearly enough to nearly fill a modern day Fort Knox, which seems unusual for a relatively small kingdom in the ancient world that didn't have modern mining techniques. So, the number "5000" for the weight of Goliath's armor is probably an exaggerated and rounded off estimate. See the two pieces at the end of my email on Samson and Solomon. -- E.T.B.]<br />END OF EXCERPTS, ABOVE, FROM "GIANTS IN THE LAND"</p><br /><p>Stephen Meyers has this to add to the above article: How tall was Goliath? The MT says, "six cubits and a span" while the Dead Sea Scroll 4QSama says, "four cubits and a span." People don't usually grow to be over 9 foot tall, so the "four cubits"(7 feet) seems the most reasonable height of Goliath. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a thousand years older than the MT. So I am going with the Dead Sea Scroll reading. I think probably most of the large bones that people found in ancient times were of extinct animals. A mammoth tusk was thought to be the horn of a unicorn. A giant fossil giraffe skull could easily been mistaken for a dragon. Many giant fossil giraffe skulls from the Miocene Epoch are found around the Mediterranean (Mayor, 2000 p. 161). There is a very good book that goes into details about this entitled "The first Fossil Hunters" by Adrienne Mayor (To her web site Click Here). </p><br /><p>For <a href="http://www.bibleandscience.com/science/dinosaurs.htm" target="_blank">Steve Meyers</a>' discussion of "giants" see this webpage.</p><br /><p>Out of the "hundreds" of stories of "human giants over ten feet tall" that some creationists claim existed, I have yet to see a single genuine human bone. Instead, just stories. And Hovind's "photograph" of a "giant human skeleton" has since been found to be nothing more than an artists' illustration of an unsubstantiated story in a book called, THE TONGUE OF TIME. I can email you the scanned pages of that artist's drawing.</p><br /><p>Speaking of such bones, Big Foot "prints" don't count, they aren't bones. And how tall was Big Foot believed to be? </p><br /><p>As for the bones we do have of the largest-known primate, Gigantopithecus (of the Middle Pleistocene of what is now northern Vietnam and southern China), that species featured males that stood an estimated 9 ft tall and weighed about 272 kg 600 lb. Please note that it is risky, in the case of Gigantopithecus to correlate tooth size and jaw depth of primates with their height and body weight, and Gigantopithecus may have had a disproportionately large head, jaws and teeth for his body size. So it could have been smaller than 9 ft. tall. And the only Gigantopithecus remains that have been discovered so far are three partial lower jaws and more than 1,000 teeth. So its actual height remains unknown.)</p><br /><p>Paleontologists at least study actual bones, and in fact have enough of them to fill more than just "one coffin," as creationists now admit. See the two quotations below:<br />QUOTATION #1: Michael Oard, a creationist writing in a creationist journal:<br />"I was surprised to find that instead of enough fossils barely to fit into a coffin, as one evolutionist once stated [in 1982], there were over 4,000 hominid fossils as of 1976. Over 200 specimens have been classified as Neanderthal and about one hundred as Homo erectus. More of these fossils have been found since 1976."<br />[ Review of the book, Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 30, March 1994, p. 222 ]</p><br /><p>QUOTATION #2: Martin Lubenow, creationist and author of Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, also wrote in the same creationist journal:<br />"The current figures [circa 1994] are even more impressive: over 220 Homo erectus fossil individuals discovered to date, possibly as many as 80 archaic Homo sapiens fossil individuals discovered to date, and well over 300 Neanderthal fossil individuals discovered to date. [ Letter to the editor of the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 31, Sept. 1994, p. 70 ]<br />Please <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/" target="_blank">visit</a> sometime to look at all the skulls and their cranial capacities, and tell me where exactly where the "creationist" gap lay. The cranial capacities of all the known hominid fossils lie along a spectrum. (The site also has a section on "anomalous fossils.")</p><br /><p>Cheers,<br />Edward T. Babinski<br />Getting the lies out of creationism: <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/0113peterson.asp" target="_blank">Unleashing the Storm</a>; Answers in Genesis critique of Dennis Peterson's new book: Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation.<br /><a href="http://talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood.html" target="_blank">How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?</a> A Close Look at Dr. Hovind's List of Young-Earth Arguments and Other Claims by Dave E. Matson. This is a great point by point rebuttal of Hovind's arguments.</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/creationism/giants.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-55853401586797538922012-03-20T14:40:00.001-07:002012-06-06T05:06:31.552-07:00Creationists Doubt Dinosaur and Human Tracks Found Together<p><strong>ANSWERS IN GENESIS'S MOST RECENT COMMENTS ON CARL BAUGH'S RESEARCH</strong><br />"[<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp" target="_blank">We suggest creationists do not use</a>...] many of Carl Baugh's creation 'evidences.' Sorry to say, AiG thinks that he's well meaning but that he unfortunately uses a lot of material that is not sound scientifically. So we advise against relying on any 'evidence' he provides, unless supported by creationist organisations with reputations for Biblical and scientific rigour. Unfortunately, there are talented creationist speakers with reasonably orthodox understandings of Genesis (e.g. Kent Hovind) who continue to promote some of the Wyatt and Baugh 'evidences' despite being approached on the matter (Ed. note: see our Maintaining Creationist Integrity, our response to Hovind's reply to this article)."</p><br /><p><strong>AiG'S MOST RECENT COMMENTS ON THE PALUXY "MAN PRINTS"</strong><br />"Some prominent creationist promoters of these tracks have long since withdrawn their support. Some of the allegedly human tracks may be artefacts of erosion of dinosaur tracks obscuring the claw marks. There is a need for properly documented research on the tracks before we would use them to argue the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs."</p><br /><p><strong>JOHN MORRIS OF ICR ON THE PALUXY DATA</strong><br />"It would now be <a href="http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-151.htm" target="_blank">improper for creationists</a> to continue to use the Paluxy data as evidence against evolution, in the light of these questions, there is still much that is not known about the tracks and continued research is in order." (Jan. 1986)</p><br /><p><strong>SNELLING OF AiG TRIED TO KEEP THE PALUXY DATA ALIVE BACK IN 1986</strong><br />"In order to discredit creationists, not long ago the evolutionists argued that many so-called human-like footprints were nothing but erosion marks, carvings, and "midnight chisel marks". Ironically, these SAME footprints will probably now be claimed to be the footprints of an unknown dinosaur because of some perplexing stains! All of which is a sober reminder -- none of us have ever seen dinosaurs make footprints."<br />(Creation (Ex Nihilo), Andrew Snelling, March, 1986, Vol. 8, No.2, p. 37)</p><br /><p><strong>E.T.B.'S COMMENT ON SNELLING'S 1986 REMARKS</strong><br />The "mantrack" discoveries were not all made at once. First, the well-defined carvings were found (being sold during the depression), one print per limestone slab, right in the middle of the slab. Thousands of loose limestone slabs of different sizes line the shores of the Paluxy. Anyone can one pick up and take it home to "work on." Carl Baugh or Henry Morris or Burdick quoted an old-timer who said they "saw the print right in the rock," but did they mean they saw such such prints in situ? A later interviewer went back to the same old-timer and asked them where they saw the rock, and the old-timer answered, "It was on the back of so-and-so's truck." There are also confessions by carvers and their kin, how they used a loose limestone slab, a hammer and chisel, and acid on rags, to smooth out the carved human prints they created. The carvings were what the earliest tales of "man tracks" at Paluxy were based on, they also featured the most well-defined "prints" (though featuring amateurish anatomical errors). Several such limestone slabs featuring alleged human prints were purchased by Loma Linda (creationist 7th Day Adventist) University and cross-sectioned and declared to be nothing but carvings by YECs at Loma Linda who wrote a report on their findings and doubts.</p><br /><p>But the carvings initiated more YEC interest, and soon some YEC's visited Paluxy and made the film, "Footprints in Stone," but for all of their searching and filming they never found any in situ man prints that resembled the carvings, they only found trails of indistinct oblong impressions that they claimed were made by humans and/or giant humans. (They also found isolated wearings in the rocks that were not part of any trail but that they claimed could be viewed as a "print" of a "human" sort.)</p><br /><p>Glen Kuban pointed out in ORIGINS RESEARCH (a creationist publication begun with ICR seed money), that there were nearby trackways in Paluxy that showed indistinct oblong track impressions, and in those trackways the oblong impressions were mixed with tridactyl impressions, and vice versa, as you followed the trackways along their full length. So, evolutionists have no trouble identifying the indistinct oblong trackways as dinosaurian in origin.<br />There are also many erosion features, shallow oblong holes, along both banks of the Paluxy river -- these miniature potholes were carved out by water streaming in one direction down the river. They are of an extremely wide variety of sizes and shapes.</p><br /><p>In some cases like the famous "Von Daniken print" (a single "human-foot shaped" feature in Paluxy that was featured in Von Daniken's film, "Chariots of the Gods," and in creationist publications, including Weston-Smith's book, Man's Origin and Man's Destiny), both Von Daniken and later creationists left the gravel on one side of the feature, and even wetted it in, to make it look like the print's right side was as well defined as its left side, but in fact the "print's" right side does not exist at all, but is flush with the rock, and it only exists when you leave gravel there or "wet the print" to create a "right side of the foot" in your mind's imagination. (You can see how this works when you view photos taken from different angles with the print clean of gravel and not wetted.) Even John Morris noted his own doubts concerning the Von Daniken print. Morris admitted when it was first photographed it had only four "toes" (the first two being equal-sized in an anatomically abnormal fashion), but years later a fifth "toe" began appearing in photos, and even Morris suggests that the "fifth toe" was not originally in evidence, but probably resulted from later tampering.</p><br /><p>The story of the Paluxy "manprints" debacle appeared in Creation/Evolution Journal in which Ronnie Hasting's published his daily journal of interactions with ICR researchers who came to look at what Kuban had found, and their reactions, at first, dismissal, then taking their own more careful second and third looks, and finally admitting they couldn't really see the "human-ness" of the trackways any more than Kuban could:</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/3868_issue_15_volume_5_number_1__4_23_2003.asp#Tracking%20Those%20Incredible%20Creationists" target="_blank">Tracking Those Incredible Creationists</a><br />by R.J. Hastings<br />NCSE Issue 15 Volume 5</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/5063_issue_17_volume_6_number_1__4_23_2003.asp#Tracking%20Those%20Incredible%20Creationists" target="_blank">Tracking Those Incredible Creationists -The Trail Continues</a><br />by Ronnie J. Hastings<br />NCSE Issue 17 Volume 6</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/9711_issue_21_volume_7_number_2__6_30_2003.asp#Tracking%20Those%20Incredible%20Creationists-The%20Trail%20Goes%20On" target="_blank">Tracking Those Incredible Creationists-The Trail Goes On</a><br />by Ronnie J. Hastings<br />NCSE Issue 21 Volume 7</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol22/291_tracking_those_incredible_crea_12_30_1899.asp" target="_blank">Tracking Those Incredible Creationists</a><br />by William Thwaites<br />NCSE Volume 22</p><br /><p>Kuban's photos and detailed site diagrams were also published in black and white in ORIGINS RESEARCH, a creationist journal that originated with seed money from ICR. Copies of past issues of ORIGINS RESEARCH are still available at the ARN website, for a price:</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.arn.org/orpages/orindex.htm" target="_blank">ORIGINS RESEARCH</a> Volume 9, Number 1 - Spring/Summer 1986<br />The Taylor Site "Man Tracks" Glen J Kuban<br />A Review of ICR Impact Article 151 Glen J Kuban<br />A Follow up on the Paluxy Mystery John Morris<br />A Footprints in Stone: The Current Situation Films for Christ Assoc.</p><br /><p><strong>SNELLING'S 1986 REMARKS ON THE "STRANGE RED-BROWN STAINS ON THE ROCKS"</strong><br />"The unknown significance of hithertofore unexposed strange red-brown stains on the rocks in and around the footprints renders the need for caution until further research explains this occurence."<br />(Creation (Ex Nihilo), Andrew Snelling, March, 1986, Vol. 8, No.2, p. 37)</p><br /><p>E.T.B.'S COMMENT: The reddish "stain" revealing the tridactyl nature of the alleged "man tracks" can be seen even in the early YEC film, "Footprints in Stone," long before Kuban ever arrived on the scene. Also, the "stains" are not superficial: Drill core samples taken at the edges of the stained surface showed that the reddish sediments curved with the impression of the dinosaur's foot beneath the surface, as Kuban showed via his drill core samples that he photographed.</p><br /><p><strong>AiG'S LATEST CLAIM: "HUMAN AND DINO PRINTS" FOUND TOGETHER IN RUSSIA</strong><br />E.T.B'S COMMENT.: <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i2/bullet.asp" target="_blank">AiG admits</a> that it is best to remain skeptical of "magic bullet" stories that can allegedly overthrow an old-earth or evolution in one shot, especially if such stories are not thoroughly researched.</p><br /><p>AiG's latest report of "human and dino prints" found together in Russia has not been researched, no photos, just a newspaper article. So by their own definition they ought to be skeptical about this new evidence, no?</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4419.asp" target="_blank">Snelling at AiG</a> has admitted that perhaps there will never be found any indisputably genuine pre-flood human fossils or pre-flood human artifacts or evidence of pre-flood dwellings (such as a series of small walls found in Cretaceous or earlier strata). Instead, Snelling has suggested that perhaps no evidence of pre-Flood human beings may ever be found: "When God pronounced judgment on the world, He said, 'I will destroy [blot out] man whom I have created from the face of the earth' (Gen. 6:7). Perhaps the lack of pre-flood human fossils is part of the fulfillment of this judgment?"</p><br /><p>See Also: <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html" target="_blank">The Index to Creationist Claims</a><br />CH710. Man and dinosaurs coexisted.<br />(see also CC100: Human fossils out of place)<br />(see also CB930.3: Dinosaurs may be in the Congo.)<br />CH710.1. Ica stones show humans and dinosaurs coexisted.<br />CH710.2. Dinosaur figurines from Acambaro show human/dino association.<br />CH711. Behemoth, from the book of Job, was a dinosaur.<br />CH711.1. Leviathan, from the book of Job, was a dinosaur.<br />CH712. Dragons were dinosaurs.<br />CH712.1. Some dinosaurs breathed fire.</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/creationism/dinosaur_tracks.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-65665076325847988982012-03-20T14:36:00.001-07:002012-06-06T05:05:31.816-07:00No Death or Decay Before the Fall?<p><strong>NO DEATH OR DECAY BEFORE THE FALL?</strong><br />QUESTIONS YOUNG-EARTH CREATIONISTS NEVER ASK<br />by Edward T. Babinski</p><br /><p>Some creationists insist that the original creation was so perfect there was "no decay." To which I say, "No decay my posterior!" Or should I say, "Adam's posterior?"</p><br /><p>For instance, (please don't laugh) were Adam and Eve created with or without anuses? Did the break down of vegetables in each of their stomachs during digestion involve the production of gas? Did they also defecate? Did their feces have any odor? How about their armpits? Did God feel the least bit obliged to give Adam and Eve the recipe for soap? (If fact, might not Adam and Eve have grown "ashamed" of any number of things, long before they were "ashamed" to discover they were "naked?" Or, as Adam once put it, "Eve, pick some of those soft leaves next time, I'm getting chaffed!")</p><br /><p> Was there pain in paradise? Well, it says in Genesis that God "cursed woman" by "increasing or multiplying" her pain in childbirth, and you can't "increase or multiply" what isn't already there. </p><br /><p>Fair Eden of creationist lore! </p><br /><p>Where sharks hungered solely for seaweed and carefully spat out even the tiniest fish they found therein. </p><br /><p>Where spiders assisted in the release of insects that flew haphazardly into their webs. </p><br /><p>Where monkeys swung wildly from tree to tree, but never crushed a single insect on a branch nor upset a single egg in a nest. </p><br /><p>Where Brontosauruses carefully weighed each gargantuan step to avoid crushing ants, worms, amphibians, reptiles, or other animals scampering beneath them; and entered the water very carefully, since sudden movements by creatures so behemouth in size might create mini-tsunamis that would innundate and drown, or bury, tiny creatures along the shore. </p><br /><p>I'd love to see a ballet of such circumspect Brontosaurs on the Arts and Entertainment network. Maybe some creationist animators might oblige by producing their version of the "deathless prances and dances" of the largest creatures in Eden as they walked on their tiptoes through the forest, so as to preserve the lives of every living object beneath their gargantuan feet?</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/creationism/death_before_fall.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-60221214698346179312012-03-20T14:24:00.001-07:002012-06-06T05:03:11.389-07:00Creation Science: How One Former Creationist Evolved<p><strong>HOW I EVOLVED</strong><br />I was once a devotee of Biblical creationism. I challenged my college professors and fellow biology students; corresponded with the Institute for Creation Research in California; conferred with the head of one branch of that movement in Philadelphia where I attended an annual conference; lectured before professional chemists (at Hoffmann La Roche); and utilized my time and money to distribute literature advocating “creationism.” However, after years of study I reversed my opinions on the subject. The questions that proved decisive in my case were not merely ones of scientific importance but also of Biblical import: I could not help wondering, “Does the Bible teach scientific creationism?”</p><br /><p>An examination of the Bible’s depiction of the cosmos and its creation (along with similar depictions found in ancient Near Eastern records) convinced me that the Bible does not depict the structure of the cosmos in scientific terms at all. To name just one instance of what I found, the Bible (in Genesis, chapter one) has the earth arise in the midst of primeval waters after those waters have been “divided” and a “firmament” created to keep those waters separated. Only after the earth has arisen are the sun, moon and stars “made” and “set” in the firmament above the earth to “light the earth.” But that is the opposite order of creation according to modern astronomy. Furthermore, since the sun, moon, and stars lay “in the firmament,” and the Bible speaks of waters “above the firmament” then there must be “waters” above the sun, moon and stars. That was exactly what Martin Luther, the Father of Protestant Christianity, pointed out, based solely on taking the Bible at its word. Below are relevant passages from the Bible followed by Luther’s summation:</p><br /><p>“God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters,’ and God made the firmament, and separated the waters which were below the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament…Then God made the two great lights…(and) the stars also. And God set them in the firmament to light the earth.”<br />-- Genesis 1:7,16-17 </p><br /><p>“Praise the Lord!…Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him stars of light! Praise Him highest heavens, And the waters that are above the heavens!”<br />-- Psalm 148:1,3-4 </p><br /><p>“Scripture simply says that the moon, the sun, and the stars were placed in the firmament of the heaven, below and above which heaven are the waters…It is likely that the stars are fastened to the firmament like globes of fire, to shed light at night…We Christians must be different from the philosophers in the way we think about the causes of things. And if some are beyond our comprehension like those before us concerning the waters above the heavens, we must believe them rather than wickedly deny them or presumptuously interpret them in conformity with our understanding.”<br />-- Martin Luther, Luther’s Works. Vol. 1. Lectures on Genesis, ed. Janoslaw Pelikan, Concordia Pub. House, St. Louis, Missouri, 1958, pp. 30, 42, 43. </p><br /><p>I wish to add that information concerning the Bible’s pre-scientific cosmology has not only been pointed out by “liberals” and “atheists,” but also by Protestant Bible-believing Christians. I have mentioned Martin Luther above, but the authors of two concordances of the Bible often praised by Evangelical Protestants, namely Cruden (author of Cruden’s Concordance), and Strong (author of Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance), were both aware of the firmness of the Hebrew “firmament.” Other conservative Christian commentators who recognized the pre-scientific or non-scientific nature of cosmological statements found in the Bible include the famous conservative Protestant theologian, B. B. Warfield, along with contemporary Evangelical Protestants, John H. Walton, Gordon Wenham, David C. Downing, Paul H. Seeley, and Stephen C. Meyers:</p><br /><p>B. B. Warfield wrote that an inspired writer of the Bible could “share the ordinary opinions of his day in certain matters lying outside the scope of his teachings, as, for example, with reference to the form of the earth, or its relation to the sun; and, it is not inconceivable that the form of his language when incidentally adverting to such matters, might occasionally play into the hands of such a presumption.” [B. B. Warfield, “The Real Problem of Inspiration,” in The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Philadelphia, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948) 166-67.]</p><br /><p>John H. Walton is past professor Old Testament at Moody Bible Institute and now teaches at Wheaton Theological Seminary. He is the author of Genesis: The NIV Application Commentary (Zondervan, 2001) that takes the ancient Near Eastern context of Genesis seriously. </p><br /><p>Gordon Wenham is the author of Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco: Word, 1987) that takes the ancient Near Eastern context of Genesis seriously.</p><br /><p>David C. Downing is the author of What You Know Might Not Be So: 220 Misinterpretations of Bible Texts Explained (Baker Book House, 1987) in which he addresses a verse in Isaiah (40:22) that speaks of the “circle” of the earth, a verse that many Evangelical Christians believe refers to a spherical earth. Downing explains that the original Hebrew does not support such an interpretation.</p><br /><p>Paul H. Seely is a graduate of Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia, and the author of numerous articles in The Westminster Theological Journal and in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, including: </p><br /><p>“<a href="http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1969/JASA3-69Seely.html" target="_blank">The Three-Storied Universe</a>,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, No. 21 (March 1969)</p><br /><p>“The Firmament and the Water Above,” Part I, Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 53 (1991)</p><br /><p>“The Firmament and the Water Above,” Part II, Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 54 (1992) </p><br /><p>“The Geographical Meaning of ‘Earth’ and ‘Seas’ in Genesis 1:10, Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 59 (1997)</p><br /><p>“The <a href="http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1997/PSCF6-97Seely.html" target="_blank">First Four Days of Genesis</a> in Concordist Theory and in Biblical Context,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, No. 49 (June 1997)</p><br /><p>Stephen C. Meyers’s master’s thesis in theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in 1989 was titled, "A Biblical Cosmology." After that he went on to co-found the Institute for Biblical and Scientific Studies and speak out about how seriously the Bible’s ancient Near Eastern context must be taken when discussing its creation accounts: </p><br /><p><a href="http://www.bibleandscience.com/" target="_blank">Institute for Biblical and Scientific Studies</a></p><br /><p>Genesis 1:7 -- “The waters above the firmament”</p><br /><p>Isaiah 40:22 -- “The circle of the earth”</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/creationism/creationist.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-1242880278160261982012-03-20T11:10:00.003-07:002012-11-15T10:49:22.379-08:00The Fine-Tuning Argument -- Ideal Moment in Time for Humans To Have Been Created?Some theists (from progressive creationists to I.D.ists and Fine-Tuners) have argued that humanity was created at the ideal moment in geological time, viz.: A God of infinite wisdom and power prepared the way for the ascendancy of mammals and eventually Homo sapiens by carefully planning and accomplishing the dinosaur's demise via asteroid, or a combination of major volcanic activity and asteroid. The vast forests grew and decayed for over a hundred million years because of God's plan to provide coal to humanity and so such products would not appear artificially inserted miraculously into Nature. The millions of sea creatures were born and perished to provide oil, natural gas, chalk, and diatomaceous earth for humanity. (For one of the earliest instances of such an argument see Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture, [1955] Paternoster: Exeter, Devon UK, 1967, reprint, p.155.) <br /><br />REPLY: Arguments and claims about what "God" or "a Designer" did, and "why" they did it, are all "after the fact." It's always possible to come up with rationalizations and justifications for "why" something happened after the fact, since you are free to invent whatever interpretations you like since the answers lay hidden from view, i.e., in God's mind alone. (Interpreting Scripture is also like that. Two people can read Genesis, but interpret it quite differently, and neither of them can show the other what "God's mind" was thinking when He inspired a particular verse in Scripture, thus contested interpretations abound.) One can at best, point out alternative, equally ad hoc, interpretations, i.e., substituting different "reasons" or "rationalizations" for what you think might have been in God's mind.&nbsp;Going into greater detail, below are<br /><br /><b>10 Counter-Points to the Fine-Tuning Argument</b><br /><br /><b>1)</b> What if God or "the Designer" was planning on evolving upright dinosaurs with two free hands and more complex brains, but the asteroid spoiled the original plan, so the Designer switched plans? (Any Designer with infinite wisdom and infinite power could have designed an intelligent upright reptilian species. According to paleontologists, some species of dinosaurs were already moving along on two legs long before mammals arose, while other evidence indicates that some dinosaurs were clever hunters and even showed motherly defense of their young, long before the mammals came along.) <br /><br /><hr align="left" color="black" style="height: 1px; width: 50%;" /><br /><b>2)</b> Why kill the dinosaurs via asteroid(s) and/or volancoes? Such blunt means wipe out entire ecosystems of plants and animals that could have produced far more biomass and more coal and oil if they had been left alive. That was supposed to be the original argument, wasn't it, to produce coal and oil? Instead, whole ecosystems and their biomass was burnt up via a huge catastrophic conflagration followed by a cloudy sky and cooler temperatures that again inhibited lush biomass grow. (Any Designer of infinite wisdom and power could have exterminated only the dinosaur species, leaving the rest of the living world unharmed and building up more biomass. Looks to me like a lack of foresight and imagination on the part of the Designer, kind of like using a sledge hammer to remove thorns from a rose bush. Instead, a lot of biomass went to waste, not just the dinosaurs, but ecosystems, and so the biomass engine was stalled. <br /><br /><hr align="left" color="black" style="height: 1px; width: 50%;" /><br /><b>3)</b> That brings us to this question: Why are miracles O.K. for explaining the "progressive creation/evolution" of different species, but not O.K. for explaining the creation of the mineralogical environment that God was preparing for humanity for so very very long? I am talking about the idea that God could have simply inserted miraculously all the oil and coal in the earth that humanity would need, without having to create humanity so late in geologic time, and without having to wait for so many species to be created and then be destroyed and become extinct, and without having to stall the biomass engine a number of times, etc. <br /><br />A relevant quotation: Suppose that upon some island we should find a man a million years of age, and suppose we found him living in an elegant mansion, and he should inform us that he lived in that house for five hundred thousand years before he thought of putting on a roof, and that he but recently invented windows and doors; would we say that from the beginning he had been an infinitely accomplished and scientific architect? [Robert Ingersoll] <br /><br /><hr align="left" color="black" style="height: 1px; width: 50%;" /><br /><b>4)</b> How do you know that the Designer "wanted humanity to have" oil, coal, gas, chalk, diatomaceous earth, etc.? Saying such a thing is after the fact. You can always invent lots of explanations after the fact, like:<br /><br />God put the nose and ears where they are so we'd be able to wear glasses.<br /><br />God made cork trees so we'd have something to plug up the ends of our wine bottles.<br /><br />God invented lamb's intestines so we'd be able to make lamb-skin condoms.<br /><br />God made radioactive elements so we'd be able to...<br /><br />You get the point. <br /><br /><b>Quotations From Folks With Similar Questions: </b><br /><br />People who believe in "intelligent design" point us to the sunshine, to flowers, to the April rain, and to all there is of beauty and of use in the world. Did it ever occur to them that a cancer is as beautiful in its development as is the reddest rose? That what they are pleased to call the adaptation of means to ends, is as apparent in the cancer as in the April rain? By what ingenious methods the blood is poisoned so that the cancer shall have food! By what wonderful contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay tribute to this divine and charming cancer! What beautiful colors it presents! Seen through a microscope it is a miracle of order and beauty. All the ingenuity of man cannot stop its growth. Think of the amount of thought it must have required to invent a way by which the life of one man might be given to produce one cancer. Is it possible to look upon it and doubt that there is a design in the universe, and that the inventor of this wonderful cancer must be infinitely powerful, ingenious and good? [Robert Ingersoll] <br /><br />We are all naturally like that madman at Athens, who fancied that all the ships were his that came into the Port of Pyraeus. Nor is our folly less extravagant. We believe all things in nature have been designed for our use. Ask any theologian why there is such a prodigious number of stars when a far lesser number would perform the service they do us, and he answers coldly, "They were made to please our sight." [Bernard de Fontenelle, A Plurality of Worlds, published in 1686] <br /><br /><strong>If Other Species Had Enough Intelligence to Ask the Question Wouldn't They Consider the Cosmos To Have Been Made "For Them?"</strong><br /><br />Until the 1800s almost everyone had fleas and lice. In the 1600s it was considered bad manners to take lice, fleas or other vermin from your body and crack them between your fingernails in company. [Tim Woods and Ian Dicks, What They Don't Teach You About History] Obviously only a Designer would have had the infinite wisdom and compassion to create "the flea" - a tiny insect with a thin body for moving easily through hair, and with immensely powerful legs for leaping many times their body length onto passing prey; and with the added ability to not just harry and bite, but to spread infections, including plague germs which killed tens of millions of people in Europe and Asia in a few short years. My dear fleas, you are the cherished work of God; and this entire universe has been made for you. God created man only to serve as your food, the sun only to light your way, the stars only to please your sight, etc. [Voltaire, "Sermon Preached Before Fleas"] <br /><br /><b>An Infinite Being Takes Billions of Years to Create Humanity?</b><br /><br />Are we really so splendid as to justify such a long prologue? The philosophers lay stress on values: they say that we think certain things good, and that since these things are good, we must be very good to think them so. But this is a circular argument. A being with other values might think ours so atrocious as to be proof that we were inspired by Satan. Is there not something a trifle absurd in the spectacle of human beings holding a mirror before themselves, and thinking what they behold so excellent as to prove that a Cosmic Purpose must have been aiming at it all along? Why, in any case, this glorification of Man? How about lions and tigers? They destroy fewer animal or human lives than we do, and they are much more beautiful than we are. How about ants? They manage the Corporate State much better than any Fascist. Would not a world of&nbsp;nightingales&nbsp;and larks and deer be better than our human world of cruelty and injustice and war? The believers in Cosmic Purpose make much of our supposed intelligence but their writings make one doubt it. If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts. [Bertrand Russell, "Cosmic Purpose" in Religion and Science]<br /><br /><b>The Analogy of the Puddle That Perfectly Fits The Hole It Happens to Occupy</b><br /><br />Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "This is an interesting world I find myself in and an interesting hole I find myself in. Fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for. [Douglas Adams (author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)] <br /><br /><hr align="left" color="black" style="height: 1px; width: 50%;" /><br /><b>5)</b> Knowing the remarkable varieties of species the Designer was busy creating for hundreds of millions of years prior to humanity's last minute arrival on the scene, it seems a shame to destroy the majority of them, sometimes slowly, sometimes in vast catastrophes. Like knocking over a game table. What kind of a "game plan" is that? While humanity only gets to puzzle over their bones? <br /><br /><hr align="left" color="black" style="height: 1px; width: 50%;" /><br /><b>6)</b> Neither do we know how long man's "ascendancy" or those of the mammals will last. If we get along for 130 million years like the dinosaurs did we'll be lucky, and if we survive for a similar period of 130 million years, what will human beings look like by then? Maybe we'll have added genetic features via bioengineering? Or we'll build silicon brains or hybrid silicone/bio brains that keep track of far more knowledge. Or, some robotic, or bio-engineered species will replace humanity? Or some meteors or cosmic rays or solar flares or passing star or black hole or nearby nova will extinguish life on earth and some other civilized race traveling through our solar system will merely cite "the story of life on earth" as an object lesson concerning the dangers inherent in the cosmos. <br /><br /><hr align="left" color="black" style="height: 1px; width: 50%;" /><br /><b>7)</b> What about life on other planets? If evidence of simple living organisms are found on Mars, or on one of Jupiter's moons, or on some planet or moon outside our particular solar system, how would the creation hypothesis or the I.D. hypothesis interpret such discoveries? Would the creationist admit God was specially creating things not mentioned in the Bible, or the I.D.ist admit that God was miraculously designing simple organisms elsewhere in the cosmos that didn't really need to be miraculously designed?<br /><br /><hr align="left" color="black" style="height: 1px; width: 50%;" /><br /><b>8)</b> Reminds me of the account in Genesis that states God created the two great "lights" (literal Hebrew is "lamps") to rule the day and night on earth, but other planets in our solar system also have great lamps, even a multitude of lamps (moons) to rule their nights and "for signs and seasons" in their heavens. I might ask why this is so, and why those planets also have their own "days and nights" "evenings and mornings" of their own unique duration having nothing to do with the earth's duration? Modern astronomical facts make the Genesis account appear a tad parochial, earth-centered, having everything created just to light the earth and fill it, during "six" evenings and morning on earth. And a little awkward having to explain why God created/designed all those other "lamps" to "rule the nights" of uninhabited worlds. <br /><br /><hr align="left" color="black" style="height: 1px; width: 50%;" /><br /><b>9)</b> Even if a Designer planned to give us coal and oil, note that the burning of coal has released much mercury into the environment all over the planet. Now the mercury leveals are so high that it is not advisable to eat large ocean going fish more than a few times per month or less, like tuna. The burning of coal and oil and using petroleum to manufacture plastics and to run factories has released pollutants galore, including PCPs, which also are polluting the entire planet. In fact the Killer Whales in the Pacific Northwest are dying out because of PCP poisoning according to a National Geographic special I saw recently, "The Dolphin Defenders." The carcases of dead Killer Whales are so full of PCPs that they have to be treated like dangerous chemical waste. And of course, we also know that the world's oil supply will not last forever, because demand, especially in China and India is growing exponentially. In a blink of geological time, mankind's industrial revolution may have come and gone:<br /><br />"It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing high intelligence this is not correct. We have, or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only." (<a href="http://www.dieoff.com/page125.htm" target="_blank">Hoyle</a>, 1964)<br /><br /><hr align="left" color="black" style="height: 1px; width: 50%;" /><br />10) See, the second and the fourth articles at this site:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/babinski/designer.html" target="_blank">Why We Believe In A Designer!</a><br /><br />They explain why the concept of "providence" seems to raise as many questions for some as it answers for others.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="2" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="height: 150px; width: 500px;"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><span>Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</span></div><div align="center"><textarea cols="50" id="txtArea" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/creation-evolution-design/time_human_created.html</textarea><br /><input onclick="CopyToClipboard()" type="button" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-36217531676272407172012-03-18T17:49:00.002-07:002012-05-04T12:11:59.018-07:00From YEC (Young Earth Creationist) to Evolutionist<p>Ed Babinski<br><br />From: Ed Babinski<br><br />Date: 5 Jul 95<br><br />Subject: ED B's story</p><br /><p>O.K. folks, here's my former fundie story in a nutshell...</p><br /><p>I was confirmed Catholic, stopped going to mass, then was "born again" after reciting the "sinner's prayer" with my best friend at the time (we were in high school). And I began attending an independent fundamentalist church in town that was known for having a great preacher, Pastor Earl V. Comfort. I was rebaptized.</p><br /><p>In college I was elected president of the most evangelical group on campus. I got into the charismatic scene, living room meetings, and Anglican charismatic prayer meetings. I also studied all the Christian apologists I could get my hands on, to try and convince fellow students and professors of the truth of Christianity. I read everything by C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton (about thirty books in all), all of Francis Schaeffer, some Os Guiness, Josh McDowell, and some Reformed Presbyterian writers too (who believed in the strictest "presuppositionist" apologetics). So, it was difficult for me to think my way out after having "thought my way in" so deeply.</p><br /><p>I began corresponding with two former evangelical friends, both of whom had left the fold in college. One had opened up to a more mystical universal belief, and the other had read about two hundred or more volumes of historical criticism and was getting his Ph.D. in N.T. Theology. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. We exchanged probably over three hundred letters at this time, and about halfway through our discussion I began to read some of the books both of them suggested. My eyes were opened. Slowly at first. I tried holding onto a more moderate and liberal evangelicalism, a al Robert Farrar Capon and Alan Watts (the books written when he was still an Anglican minister), and Conrad Hyers (the humorous spiritual writer). But to no avail. One of the final breaks occurred after reading Thomas Paine's little monograph on the prophecies, and reading a Jewish scholar's book that also pointed out that the early Christians were lying about what the Old Testament plainly stated, in order to make it conform to "Jesus' life."</p><br /><hr color="black" align="left" style="height: 1px; width: 50%"><br /><p>From: Ed Babinski<br><br />Date: 5 Jul 95<br><br />Subject: RE: Leaving the Fold</p><br /><p><em>[Toronto Blessing]</em></p><br /><p>Isn't the "Toronto Blessing" the "laughter blessing?" Just wondering. I was a charismatic for a while, and can still speak in tongues whenever I wish. I believe Rob Berry can too. Just a note to let you know that there's two books written by a former Pentecostal minister, one of which is called <em>Don't Call Me Brother</em>, which discusses a lot of the different "blessings" in the charismatic/Pentecostal genre which made the rounds at Jim and Tammy's Bakker's religious amusement park. An edited version of <em>Don't Call Me Brother</em> is found in my own recent book, <em>Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists</em>, by Prometheus Books, copyright 1995, hardcover, 460 pages, acid free paper, photos, index, retails for $32.95 (USA)</p><br /><p><em>Leaving the Fold</em> includes over 30 testimonies by former fundamentalists who are now either moderate evangelicals, liberal Christians, ultra-liberals, Wiccans, mystics, agnostics, or atheists. They tell their own stories, just as they wish, explaining how they entered into fundamentalist Protestant Christianity, and why they left it. It's a book for anyone seeking to understand their faith more and struggling with it, be they Christians, atheists, or members of other religions.</p><br /><p>One testimony is by Charles Templeton, Billy Graham's best friend during the Youth for Christ years, and a former fellow evangelist. Today, Templeton is a "reverent agnostic." And there's Sam Keen's story (he is the author of <em>Faces of the Enemy</em>, which was also a PBS special), and some historical figures like America's "Great Agnostic" (Robert Ingersoll), and H. P. Smith the Presbyterian biblical scholar who was booted out of his denomination in a famous "heresy" trial, and modern figures like the moderate evangelical Christian editor of <em>The Door</em> (a sort of Christian National Lampoon), Mike Yaconelli (who went to the fundamentalist institution, Bob Jones University), and Farrell Till, former Church of Christ minister and now editor of <em>The Skeptical Review</em>. There's a big bibliography with lots of other places to look for further testimonies, an appendix of quotations regarding fundamentalism, an extensive index, and a section on the history of fundamentalism which explains how <em>liberal</em> fundamentalism has grown over the centuries!</p><br /><p>Phone Prometheus Books for a free catalog, at 1-800-421-0351 (24 hours).</p><br /><p>Best, Ed B</p><br /><hr color="black" align="left" style="height: 1px; width: 50%"><br /><p><em>I would be interested in hearing more about Ed's "intellectual journey". In particular if he went fairly directly from YEC to "liberal evangelicalism", or did he pass through an extended "old-earth" Progressive Creationism stage? If so, what OEC/PC books did he read during that stage, and what were his main problems with them?</em></p><br /><p>LOL (at "extended" old-earth stage -- an unwitting pun perhaps?) I'm afraid that my old-earth stage did not drag on as long as that of say, Glenn Morton who went from young-earth to a "middle-earth" stage(no, not Tolkein's middle earth but his compromise with the fact the he wanted an earth was young as he could get it, but honestly couldn't find arguments that would bring it down under a couple hundred thousand years old), which he maintained for a while before finally becoming an old earther (an earth billions of years old)<br><br />Source: Glenn Morton</p><center><img alt="Edward T. Babinski" hspace=0 src="http://edwardtbabinski.us/images/etb.jpg" align=baseline border=0></center><br /><p>I was still a young-earther after I graduated from college with a B.S. in biology, after which a moderate/liberal Christian friend (he was moderate but grew more liberal over time) lent me Bernard Ramm's book on The Harmony of Science and Scripture to read, and also lent me the special "Noah's Ark" issue of Creation/Evolution journal (I think that the National Center for Science Education on the web still has copies of them for sale). I read both of them, and recall being affected by Ramm's admission that more and more early ape and hominid skulls were being dug up every year. Ramm proved correct about that prediction, even though he wrote it in the 1950s. The "Noah's Ark" issue of Creation/Evolution was my introduction to questions being asked of the Noah's ark story and of Flood geology. Prior to that I thought all the questions were being raised concerning modern geology. With the aid of those books I began to understand that my own side contained "difficulties" rather than simply all the difficulties lying on the side of old-earthers and evolutionists. I can't remember all the old-earth books I read, but two by Dan Wonderly stand out, his early work, God's Time Records in Ancient Sediments, and also his later work, Neglect of Geologic Data (taking the young-earthers to task, Wonderly built his old-earth arguments on phenomena that take a lot of time to form, like fine clay particles that requre still water and a lot of time to settle and yet there's shale deposits from clay many feet thick sandwiched in places in the geologic record. And the time it takes microscopic organisms to form microscopic calcium-rich "shells" and then die and have their shells settle on the water's bottom and form limestone many feet thick, even pelletized limestone from the fecal pellets of fish who ingested the microscopic organisms and then their fecal pellets collected in layers many feet thick. And the time it takes corals to grow and where they are found in the fossil record in situ, and other such arguments. Dan's evangelical committment and reasonable arguments even somewhat moved Henry Morris the young-earther because in Morris's early works, Dan's books are the only "old-earth" books Morris mentioned in his bibliographies. Of course at that early time, when Morris's book, The Genesis Flood was just catching on in the mid-60s and early 1970s among conservative Christians, there were not a lot of geologists who thought it seemly to devote time to answering Morris's arguments. Dan was one of the first to point out that Morris assumed trilobites were heavy creatures and hence sunk to the bottom of the Flood's "geologic column" very fast, but Dan corrected Morris and pointed out that paleontolgists actually assumed that trilobites were probably as light as today's sandcrabs. (I wonder if Morris assumed that a fossil of a creature was as heavy as the creature itself in the case of trilobites? Quite a blind spot I'd say, whatever Morris's reasons.)</p><br /><p>I have also read some other old-earth works, including one by Pattle Pun, and Alan Hayward's book, Creation and Evolution, and John Weister's book on Genesis 1 and science.</p><br /><p>What problems did I see with old-earth books? None concerning the old-earth science they contained. It was their attempts at a scientifically accommodating theology that I began to have a problem with. I knew the young-earth reasons for assuming that the creation account spoke of six literal earth days with evenings and mornings, even linked to man's work week in a verse in Exodus. And although I had read a number of attempts to harmonize the Scriptural account of creation with an old-earth, none of them seemed convincing. I mean, fruit trees created a day before the sun moon and stars? (Yes, I knew of the old-earth harmonization attempt that declared the sun, moon and stars "appeared" on day four as seen by an earthly observer through a sky in which the clouds had just broken, so it was argued, they were not "made and set" as it literally says in Genesis on day four. But to make the harmonization work you have to neglect the plain words that they were "made and set into the firmament above the earth." And you have to delegate day four of creation as a day when God did little, a day of "rest" in the MIDDLE of the creation week when He simply let the clouds roll by.</p><br /><p>I also began to research the comparative ancient near eastern history of the Genesis creation account (writing a manuscript, "Does the Bible Teach Scientific Creationism?" that I sent to Dr. Henry Morris my former young-earth hero), to tell him that I had found nothing scientific in the Genesis account, nor in a lot of other verses in the Bible where I had previously seen "modern science in the Bible." Instead, I began to see the creation week as a reflection of the ancient notion of the earth's primacy, everything created in earth days, in earth evenings and mornings, everything created for the earth, with the sun moon and stars as light bulbs made and set above the earth only after the earth was brought forth first, and to light the earth and for signs and seasons on the earth below.</p><br /><p>Then came the creation of the fish and birds a day before the creation of land critters. Fish and birds together? This was apparently done to fill the two regions created after the waters were divided on day two, the sea and the sky "and the birds flew across the face of the firmament." So Day Two of Creation parallels Day Five. But it seemed to me a poetic parallel having little to do with the actual order of appearances of creatures in the geologic record with fish first, then land animals, and birds later. And what about creating fruit trees and seed-bearing plants three days before creeping things (including the pollinating insects that such plants required).</p><br /><p>Those are some of the problems I began having with the Biblical creation account, it was strictly a miraculous account with the earth being primary in creation with everything created for it alone, and in six earth days. The parallels between the Bible's account and other ancient near eastern accounts were stunning and striking, especially in the ways they all assumed a flat earth and the earth's primacy in all of creation with the heavens created just for the earth and after it, and animals created by divine fiat out of the ground. </p><br /><p>Such realizations led me at that time to abandon trying to harmonize Genesis with modern science, though I had read a number of attempted harmonizations. And there was the added difficulty of harmonizing the sequence of Gen. 1 with Gen. 2, since Gen. 2 seems to reverse certain sequences in Gen. 1. </p><br /><p>The articles of the evangelical Christian Paul Seeley have served to convince me further that Genesis is not dealing with science at all. Seeley's articles questioned a lot of old-earth attempts at harmonization, like his article on "Concordism and Genesis 1." He is a member of ASA, an evangelical group of Christians who work in scientific fields, and his articles have appeared even in the conservative Westminster Theological Journal (Seeley's alma mater). His best and longest articles are not presently on the web, though a number of them are available at the <a href="http://www.asa3.org/" target="_blank">ASA website</a>.</p><br /><p>(You can also google search using) "Paul Seeley" creation (keep the quotations around his name)</p><br /><p>Paul also sent me e-copies of his non-web published pieces for me to distribute to whomever is interested in what the Bible says concerning creation, its shape, age, and mode of creation. He has also researched what the church fathers taught (in his article on "Concordism and Genesis 1"). And written a new article on the Tower of Babel (that I also have an e-copy of). Even Biblia Sacra, the Dallas Theological Seminary publication couldn't fault him for his historical research though they disagreed with his conclusions. And at least one Christian homeschool group has altered their cirriculum based on the impact his articles have had.</p><br /><p>Paul revealed to me recently that "Evangelicals now have a commentary on Genesis available which not only takes the ancient Near Eastern context of Genesis seriously, it's stance on the relation of science to Scripture is very much in line with a lot of ASA thinking. It approvingly cites and quotes Howard Van Till, Glenn Morton, and myself, and perhaps others of the the ASA; and, it speaks specifically though not in an extended way against creation science. It is Genesis, The NIV Application Commentary by John H. Walton (past professor of OT at Moody Bible Institute, and now at Wheaton), published by Zondervan, 2001. Although it is not a technical commentary like Gordon Wenham's, it is a solid scholarly piece of work. 759 pages, nearly half of which deal with Gen 1-11."</p><br /><p>I found out about Paul and his articles soon after writing "Does the Bible Teach Scientific Creationism?" and advertising it in my first zine in the mid 1980s, Theistic Evolutionists' Forum. The zine contained articles by old-earth creationists and theistic evolutionists and covered both the creation account in the Bible and evolutionary science and critiqued various young-earth views. I sent free copies of the first few issues out to a number of creationist organizations. So I have as I said read, interacted with, and exchanged info with old-earthers. One issue of the zine also highlighted evidence for an old-earth and for evolution. There was a sister zine as well, Monkey's Uncle. I did not argue for atheism in that zine, and don't argue for atheism today, despite all the questions I have regarding the "Design" hypothesis. After editing Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists in 1995, I couldn't resist editing a new zine, Cretinism or Evilution for about two and a half years. It was originally in paper, but some readers contacted me via email and asked permission to post them at the Talk.origins archive. </p><br /><p>The increasing visibility of the Intelligent Design movement is interesting. I think it evolved because there was a niche for it, Darwinially speaking. There never was such a clearing house of theists before, YECs, OECs, TEs, who sincerely want science to prove the certainty of God's existence, indeed, His necessity, and wipe the smiles off of every "presumptuous" atheist on earth. Seems to me like the theists who proudly declare themselves I.D.ers are doing it for the same reasons that people moving west would draw their wagons in a circle when Indians attacked. Science is universal now, people of all religions and non-religions the world round practice radiometric dating, dig for fossils in geologically appropriate areas and keep finding more interesting ones in the right places, and there are journals and institutes that study genetics, pseudogenes, retroviral genes, geology, paleontology, etc., that simply study the earth without mentioning "God" at all in journal after journal, conference after conference, article after article. They seem to get along pretty fine, those scientists, even atheists, agnostics, and all religious believing scientists. But I.Ders want more that this vast enterprise that doesn't highlight faith or religion, and they are highly sensative whenever an agnostic or atheistic scientist spouts his views in essays or books about how he didn't find God in the details, but instead found natural connections. They are sensative to their theism not being written into scientific treatises like Newton used to do. They want to make some noise for God in science. And they have an institute of their own, and talk scientific jargon, and claim they are going to uncover proofs of the truth of the Ages, of God, but right now they are simply gnawing on Darwin's trousers, attacking the "icons" of evolution. Do they have any genuine goal except to gnaw on Darwin's trousers together and Darwin-bait until their hearts content? Doing it all for a "God" who won't help them out a bit even though some I.D.ers claims He popped millions of new species into existence over geologic time, or massively magically changed one species after another over geologic time. Still, this same God won't put on a show right before modern day scientists and magically design one more new thing so they can see something pop or massively change right before their eyes? (He did it for Elijah and the prophets of Baal, a "show" that proved his point.)</p><br /><p>Behe tries to gnaw Darwin's trousers too, mentioning how irreducibly complex many things in nature seem to him. But then Dr. Doolittle comes along and starts to show how the blood clotting mechanism could have evolved. Oops, Behe didn't know THAT! <a href="http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/catalano/box/behe.htm" target="_blank">Behe's Empty Box</a>.</p><br /><p>Denton comes along and does some gnawing, trying out his "typological model" and boasting that there is no geneological connection whatsoever -- "no functional continuum" -- between major "macro-evolutionary" groups. Oops, Denton admits to an interviewer he didn't know the full story about the mammal-like reptiles in the fossil record. And he says he would have written his book differently had he known that! He also discovers that his cytochrome-C arguments were wrongfully employed. He goes back to the drawing board and comes out with a second book advocating a Deistic anthropic principle. According to his latest view accepts a "tree of related [genomic] sequences that can all be interconverted via a series of tiny incremental NATURAL [my emphasis] steps." So Denton appears to have done an "about face." He now accepts something that he insisted before was utterly impossible, i.e., "a functional continuum" of common ancestry including "macroevolution."</p><br /><p>Berlinski, the philosopher cum mathematician cum theologian of the I.D. crusade gnaws on numbers. Mathematicians and computer scientists and statisticians are not impressed by Berlinski's arguments and complain about his elementary errors, inaccuracies, misunderstandings, and lack of knowledge of the relevant literature, even literature stretching back over 40 years ago: A <a href="http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho44.htm" target="_blank">review</a> of William Dembski's "Intelligent Design" by Gert Korthof</p><br /><p>William Dembski. <a href="http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/nflr3.pdf" target="_blank">No Free Lunch</a>: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased Without Intelligence. Rowman and Littlefield. 2002 A Review by Jeffrey Shallit. Department of Computer Science. University of Waterloo. Waterloo, Ontario.</p><br /><p>Personally, I have trouble with the fact that I.D.ers never defend any particular age of the earth or even manner of the Designer working. He could have popped new kinds into existence anytime anywhere, or massively changed one species into another kind, anytime, anywhere. Instead, he kept to the standard evolutionary script:</p><br /><p>1) Employed <a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/babinski/designer.html" target="_top">evolutionary-like jury-rigged</a> "designs" that seem less than perfect and less than wonderful. In fact some seem not only unimpressively awkward but also hideous.</p><br /><p>2) Employed massive extinctions (creating new designs just to watch them die out, then designing new ones just to died out again and again -- dinosaurs gone -- marsupials mainly gone except in Australia and small populations found elsewhere on earth -- millions of other species wiped out over geologic time either singly or in massive extinctions -- all long before man arrived on the scene).</p><br /><p>3) Employed ever escalating "arms races" (increasingly more hardy designs to DEFEAT other designs, from the microscopic world to the macroscopic world) </p><br /><p>4) Designed feather-like scales and/or feathers on bi-pedal dinos before creating winged dinos. Designed the first winged dinos far less impressively than later dinos, i.e., the earliest winged dinos had small keel bones, thick triangular reptilian skulls with teeth, solid bones, long boney tails (that create drag), unfused metacarpals, and other traits that made the first feathered fliers less adept than modern fliers with their smooth helmeted skulls, hollow bones, pigyostyle tail stumps, fused metacarpals and enormous keel bones. Also designed apparently designed the lung and even the first simple boney feet in fish before he Designed the first amphibians. And even left ventral fish-like tails on the earliest fish-like amphibians. </p><br /><p>5) The Designer didn't clean up the genome either, allowing pseudogenes, along with viral and even bacterial DNA to accumulate in genomes over time -- the same genomic junk being found in critters that evolutionists believe shared common descent based on the fossil record and comparative anatomy. Didn't clean up the chromosomes either as can be seen by comparing man's with his closest living relative, the chimpanzee. Man has evidence inside <a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/articles/chimp_chromosome.html">chromosome no.2</a> that shows it was probably the result of two chimp chromosomes that fused at some point. You normally don't find telomeres inside a chromosome but at its ends. You normally don't find the remnants of centromeres above and below the central centromere of a chromosome unless of course it came about via the fusion of two separate chromosomes each with it's own centromere. A sloppy fusion by a sloppy "Designer." </p><br /><p>6) Life is fecundant beyond what I'd expect in a harmonious balanced design, in fact life is fecundant to the point of over abundance, perhaps to the point of obscenity, creatures always moving into new niches, taking them over, new species found in isolated caves in Yugoslavia, or creatures living near deep sea vents (creatures not apparently necessary to life above the deep sea level since they live off of bacteria that live off of sulpherous chemicals emitted by those vents). Perhaps we'll discover simple life forms living on other planets or the moons of other planets (again serving no designed purpose, especially for life on earth, indeed, not even being mentioned in the Genesis creation account which only mentioned life on earth). Why so many seeds and sperms and eggs and fertilized eggs, etc. produced by each creature (the majority of which simply die)? If multiplicity is so essential to the Designer's plan does that mean the Designer was unable to Design things to have a relatively smaller number of healthy offspring instead of this huge scattershot approach toward providing for each new generation? Here's point #6 in a nutshell: Even WITH the enormous potential of life to reproduce way beyond its means, most creatures STILL go extinct over geologic time to be replaced by new designs! (Sound fishily like Darwinism to me.) </p><br /><p><strong>ADDENDA</strong>: </p><br /><p>I've spoken many times with the prominent I.D.er Paul Nelson, and he assures me that unless I.D. comes up with some universally recognizable positive evidence for I.D. along with some genuine research program of its own (instead of just gnawing at Darwin's trousers) it will wind up going the way of the Dodo. I corrected him and pointed out that man's mind was more flexible than the Dodo's, and that I.D. fills a niche that unites a lot of trouser gnawers.</p><br /><p>Do I think that Darwinism holds all the answers? No. But the evidence for common descent, along with the six catagories mentioned above do raise questions that I think I.D.ers lack satisfactory answers to, UNLESS they are willing to compromise and consider their "Designer" to be more of a "Tinkerer." *smile* In which case, they would come eerily close to Darwin's views. </p><br /><p>Best, Ed</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/yec.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263095123937881532.post-6241452882262159372012-03-15T16:37:00.001-07:002012-05-04T12:02:41.975-07:00The Bill of Rights: "We hold these truths..."<p><em>Vic Reppert (Christian philosopher and author)<br><br />and<br><br />Ed Babinski (former Christian and author)</em></p><br /><p>A Discussion about Thomas Jefferson's lines in the Declaration of Independence (leading into a discussion of the basis of ethics) </p><br /><hr color="black" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><p>VIC: So Jefferson didn't mean what he said when he said the rights were endowed by the creator? I find that hard to believe, and if it is true, we need evidence you don't provide here.</p><br /><p>ED: Endowed by a creator, or dictated a king, or by the people, or by your neighbor, or your Dad. Authoritarianism is still authoritarianism. Believing you have an authoritarian basis for how you ought to behave does not explain why or how such a basis functions, except on the basis of an authoritarian, ask no questions, functioning. </p><br /><p>And speaking of the American revolution, many still believed in a "creator" who "endowed" "kings" with a divine right to rule, including king George in England. ("For the powers that be are placed their by God and do not wield the sword in vain.") If both Jefferson and King George believed in a creator, what made Jefferson's refusal to want to pay taxes to "kings" the more "divine" proposal? </p><br /><hr color="black" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><p>VIC: OK Ed. Do we, on your view, have inalienable rights? Or not?</p><br /><p>ED: Again, how do you philosophically prove such a thing as "inalienable rights?" And what about legal rights based on "common sense" instead of "inalienability?" Questions of philosophy, in this case, moral philosophy, are ones that begin with questions we each ask ourselves. Like you ask yourself how you would react in a similar situation, and how you think others would react to your own reaction. The fact that some reactions have been so widespread among higher civilizations and elevated to the point of being written down in various "books" and declared "holy," as in the Book of the Dead and in the laws of Hammurabi (which preceded the Ten Commandments), only means that they were written down. But prior to being written down, people asked questions: "How would I react in a similar situation, and how do I think others would react to my reaction?" You do know that the Babylonians portrayed Hammurabi receiving his laws directly from the sun god Shamash? Moses is portrayed receiving his laws directly from Yahweh. But proof remains lacking in both cases. Heck, just look at the laws of Hammurabi compared with the later laws of Moses, and you see changes, an evolution. And look at the laws of Moses compared with America's Bill of Rights, and you see further changes, an evolution. I am not saying anything about the existence or non-existence of a creator. I am merely pointing out where I think the line is most plainly drawn concerning what both you and I know and don't know about such questions. </p><br /><p>Now tell me exactly what you are trying to argue? Lewis' "Tao?" Are you trying to argue that without absolutely pure laws directly from some supernatural source, mankind will live in chaos? Well, even naturalists have a "source," namely the entire cosmos, and entire history of the evolution of social species. And all such "sources" aside, disagreements concerning laws, and their penalties, remain.</p><br /><p>Believers in a "creator" turned central Europe into a wasteland following the dawn of the Reformation. And even today, you have Catholic and Protestant ethicists in disagreement on matters ranging from questions of a "just war," to the "death penalty," and even "condom use." </p><br /><p>Whatever "philosophical basis" you posit for ethical laws, the real question is how you get people to agree on the laws themselves, regardless of what "philosophical basis" each person may propose. Can we get supernaturalists and naturalists to agree on specific laws? That is the challenge of an open society. Also, when arguing based on authoritarianism which laws from what "authoritative sources" are you arguing in favor of? Is the Bible or Koran your source? If the Bible, then which parts of the Bible for which laws? Let's pick the law, "Thou shalt not kill." Killing another human being seems like a good one to make authoritatively unquestionable, but Moses even instructed "brother to kill brother" after he came down from the mountain (and saw people worshiping the golden calf), and ordered fathers to stone and kill their own children if they even "tempt them" to "follow other gods," and later Moses ordered the slaughter of women and male children (Numb. 31), so killing even defenseless women and children is just fine whenever it's "godly" enough. I could add God commanding Joshua to kill entire cities. I guess if you believe a creator "god" is behind your actions, your actions are O.K. </p><br /><p>Perhaps also, you have not studied the ways theology has interacted with the history of lawmaking in Europe? The trouble, as theologians saw it from Constantine to Luther's day was that Jesus never laid down laws for society or said what penalties ought to be enforced for breaking them. He just told people to save their own individual souls. Popes and Protestants pointed out that trying to encourage people to turn to God and save their souls, and letting heretics run loose polluting people's souls with false beliefs, was counterproductive, as even pointed out in Mosaic law. In fact, the Bible speaks of God damning entire nations if the majority of people don't worship him or act godly enough. So letting heretics run loose is a threat to the state, not just to individual's eternal souls. And a father could kill a man who was threatening the life of his child. How much more a heretic threatening the eternal life of his child? You must perhaps read Calvin's and Beza's works on the necessity of killing heretics. Then read Castellio's counter's to Calvin's arguments. In the end, there are arguments on both sides that remain. Today we even have Christians who still advocate stoning disobedient children to death. And we have Christians who are against the death penalty for any reason. </p><br /><hr color="black" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><p>VIC: The creator of the universe, a being omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good.</p><br /><p>ED: Define "good" using all the examples of God's actions in the Bible. And also help me understand why portraying "God" as the author of such things as "forbidding" a piece of fruit" (or you must die and all your descendants carry your stain); Flooding the whole earth; demanding the slaughter of women, babes, cities; sending plagues and famines and foreign armies; and "casting people into a lake of fire whose smoke rises for eternity;" is acting "good." If a devil did all of the things I just mentioned, imagine how such activities would stain that devil's reputation. </p><br /><hr color="black" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><p>VIC: 2) How can you get people to agree concerning "God?"You can't. Some people, like you, are bound to get it wrong.</p><br /><p>ED: Citing me for "getting it wrong," isn't an argument. I think I have gotten more things "right," than when I used to believe in inspired books and Christian theological doctrines that raised as least as many questions as answers.</p><br /><hr color="black" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><p>VIC: 3) Exactly how does "God" "grant" or maintain "rights?" By creating people and loving them.</p><br /><p>ED: Then why not define and give specific examples of "the love of God" so that we may discuss them further--leaving out of course the tautology that mere existence is an example of the love of God. Mere existence may be many things, including a mystery, but it is not an example of anything in particular. The cosmos is filled with things that exist, but it does not appear to be filled with "love." Show me love, besides of course the love we both know about, mother love, family love, romantic love, love between friends, and charity between strangers (which even atheists contribute to in many countries on earth). </p><br /><hr color="black" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><blockquote><em>ED: 4) Exactly what "rights" does "God" grant?</em></blockquote><br /><p>VIC: Anytime God commands someone not to do something to someone else, God grants the potential victim the right not to have that done to them.</p><br /><p>ED: Depends on the theologian you talk to. Open theology, or Arminianism, for example, is not Calvinism. </p><br /><p>And the question has always remained whether God's knowing everything is tantamount to everything being "set," and hence no "potentialities." </p><br /><hr color="black" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><blockquote><em>ED: 5) If you are speaking of the "God of the Bible," what rights did "God" "grant" in the Old Testament and in the New Testament?</em></blockquote><br /><p>VIC: For starters, the right to life, when he commanded "Thou Shalt not Kill."</p><br /><p>ED: See above. I already discussed that one. </p><br /><hr color="black" style="width: 50%; height: 1px"><br /><blockquote><em>ED: 6) How do such "rights" agree or disagree with one another from one Testament to the other?<br><br />7) Are any rights from the Old Testament still valid today, or, are any no longer valid today? On what basis?<br><br />8) Are any "Biblical rights" different from America's "Bill of Rights?"<br><br />Please explain which ones and why or why not.</em></blockquote><br /><p>VIC: There can be disagreement on these question, while at the same time agreement on the basic point that is makes sense to talk about God creating people and telling people that there are some things you can't do to them, hence granting them rights, while I have trouble seeing the evolutionary process granting those same rights. </p><br /><p>ED: I have trouble seeing any theological or philosophical viewpoint "granting" anyone anything. Theological and philosophical viewpoints come and go, get challenged, foment disagreements of and by themselves, until all sides can't even conceive of how the world can dare to go right on "working" without everyone agreeing to one fellow or the other's "theological and philosophical basis." Reminds me of the story about Bishop Berkeley who was totally convinced that "matter" did not exist, only "spirit" existed. Big difference, he fell off his horse and his head on a rock and perished afterwards. Did it matter that it was a "rock conceived in God's spiritual mind" as Berkeley believed? I tend to leave the mysteries where they are, the inexpressibility of each moment, because most people should be able to learn (if they ask enough questions, instead of settling for authoritarian answers) where the line lay between what they know, and what they only think they know, or believe, or hope.</p><br /><p>I think perhaps that you've been hanging out too much with Christian philosophers who can multiply arguments ad infinitum (as in a recent comment at your blog) until you think you've got a huge corral of "proofs" instead of mere variations of the same questionable or ambiguous premises, and confusion about the hypnotic power of big philosophical terms. </p><br /><p>Have you read Smullyan? Raymond M. Smullyan (mathematician, logician, philosopher) </p><br /><p>Raymond M. Smullyan, Is God A Taoist? A fascinating conversation between a "Mortal" and "God," that raises a host of interesting logical and philosophical questions.<br><br /><a href="http://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTaoist.html" target="_blank">Is God A Taoist?</a><br><br />Selections from his books, The Tao Is Silent, and, The Mind's Eye<br><br /><a href="http://www.rdegraaf.nl/index.asp?sND_ID=114133" target="_blank">The Tao Is Silent</a></p><br /><p>What about Pickover?</p><br /><p>"Dr. Cliff Pickover has published nearly a book a year in which he stretches the limits of computers [mathematics, physics], art, and thought." - Los Angeles Times<br><br /><a href="http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/godcp.html" target="_blank">sprott.physics.wisc.edu</a></p><br /><p>There is delight in asking questions.</p><br /><table border="2" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" height="150"><tbody bgcolor="#E1F3DA"><tr><td background="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/tools/gradient.png"><form name="Form1"><div align="center"><font size="-1">Make a shorter URL to this article. Highlight link and "Copy To Clipboard"</font></div><div align="center"><textarea id="txtArea" cols="50" rows="3">http://edwardtbabinski.us/self_evident_truths.html</textarea><br /><input type="button" onClick="CopyToClipboard()" value="Copy to Clipboard" /></div></form></td></tr></tbody></table>The Night Owlnoreply@blogger.com0